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Do You Want to Live Forever?

Posted by timothy on from the depends-with-whom dept.

Jamie McCarthy writes "In 1918, Gunnery Sergeant Daniel Daly inspired his weary men to attack by yelling, 'come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?' But how would the world change if we could? This month's Technology Review introduces us to the computer scientist, and self-taught biologist, Aubrey de Grey, who thinks immortality could be within our grasp by 2030. Thinking like an engineer, he's broken aging down into seven specific problems, like cell atrophy and mitochondrial mutation, which he believes can all, in principle, be solved. And he has good reason to think those seven are the only 'bugs' standing in the way of a thousand-year lifespan. De Grey is clearly both a genius and a little nuts, but I'm not sure in what proportion..."

9 of 1,334 comments (clear)

  1. Doom for Social Security by slashnutt · · Score: 4, Funny

    The Social Security System will fail Shortly after 2031. Could you imagine getting paid to not work for 935 years? You would have to have a population growth 935 times what it is today to sustain that growth! This is one reason that SS is fundamentally flawed.

    1. Re:Doom for Social Security by PCM2 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Look, kid, the world doesn't owe you a living. Nobody said eternal life was fair.

      --
      Breakfast served all day!
    2. Re:Doom for Social Security by William+R.+Dickson · · Score: 5, Funny

      "If you were "immortal" you could just keep working and wouldn't need SS."

      Oh.

      Yay.

  2. Things To Look Forward by ackthpt · · Score: 5, Funny
    Things To Look Forward To In Immortality:

    3D High Def THX Surround Sound home entertainment (some brain surgery required)

    The 100th season of the Simpsons

    200 more years of Dick Clark in Times Square

    Windows Cthulhu (C'mon, you know it was coming some day...)

    Baseball players finally agree to seriously address the steroid issue after a homerun ball is driven through the skull of a guy two miles away from the stadium.

    No matter how well you cared for your teeth, you'll eventually lose them.

    Watching every public retirement system go into the stock market and then watch it really tank! (Alpo! Yum!)

    Liver Spot removal pill spam

    Survivor Krakatoa

    Final Fantasy LXXVI: The ploy that isn't beaten to death, yet.

    After about 20 presidents claiming to reduce spending you realize they're full of shit as the world runs out of money to finance the US debt. And those guys who said, "The debt doesn't matter", they died, so it didn't matter to them.

    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
    1. Re:Things To Look Forward by jxyama · · Score: 4, Funny
      you forgot one...

      we can all live long enough so that a 6-digit /. id's will become "rare and wise" when there are 10 million /. members. :)

  3. More Spam by Deinhard · · Score: 5, Funny

    Oh great, in addition to the bigger penis spams, we'll start getting "Live Forever" messages.

    AND...we'll be getting them much longer. Jeez!

    --
    Successfully condensing fact from the vapor of nuance since 1998.
  4. Man that's a long time to be a virgin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    er em ... better post this AC

  5. Let me guess ... by jolshefsky · · Score: 5, Funny

    Is it because 2038 going to be just like 1970 all over again?

    --
    --- Jason Olshefsky

    Karma: Poser (mostly affected by adding this line long after everyone else did)

  6. But we WANT to be out of it... by Linker3000 · · Score: 4, Funny

    All us middle-aged geeks want to be well retired by 2038 so we don't have to deal with the *nix/Linux 32-bit date problem - or at least semi-retired so we can be called back on consultancy basis and hefty fee.

    --
    AT&ROFLMAO