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Humans Could Live For 1000 Years
Maajid wrote to mention an article on the Chronicle of Higher Education site about a biogerontologist who thinks he can kill death. From the article: "The 42-year-old English biogerontologist has made his name by claiming that some people alive right now could live for 1,000 years or longer. Maybe much longer. Growing old is not, in his view, an inevitable consequence of the human condition; rather, it is the result of accumulated damage at the cellular and molecular levels that medical advances will soon be able to prevent -- or even reverse -- allowing people to go on living pretty much indefinitely. We'll still have to worry about angry bears and falling pianos, but aging, the biggest killer of all, will cease to be a threat. Death, as we know it, will die."
Further more, would we all have to look like Yoda after awhile?
How many times do you think you'd be able to say "B.S." in 1000 years.
And we'll be driving our flying cars all the while.
You can't take the sky from me...
In 500 years, you've got a 100% chance of being struck by a bus.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I'm absolutely fascinated by the idea, but it raises several important questions...
Imagine a world where the vast majority of skilled people live effectively forever. What opportunity will there be for the young, if the elders have had a centuries-long head start?
How could we possibly provide the resources necessary to feed an effectively undying yet still growing population? Would famine become the determiner or longevity?
Can the human brain retain the sheer volume of information and experience achievable in a millenia of living? Would we forget the past, or become unable to learn the future?
Not all of the questions are negative, either. Would longer-lived decision makers take longer-term factors into account? Would humanity be more inclined to space travel if time were no longer the limiting factor?
Realistically, we do not have the capability as a civilization to cope with this sort of thing as we stand. Individuals could take advantage of it and live long, and believe me when I say that I'd be the first one in line, but to provide something of this magnitude to the masses would be suicidal.
Ideals aside, I would want this for myself, but not for my neighbors. Selfish, yes, but better some than all or none.
Of course, scientists have said as much before, and little has come of it, so it may be a moot point for centuries yet to come.
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What you just did is nowhere near what this man has done. He identified the major physical reasons behind aging and is working on proposing and coordinating new ideas to fight the causes of aging.
Is he crazy? Probably. Is he wrong? Probably. At least he's got a goal and is formulating a plan to achieve it. If he is wrong, science will probably learn a lot about how the human body works, and other scientific achievements will be made in the process.
By the way... these treatments will only really be available to the extremely wealthy. Considering how difficult it is for many Americans to get basic health insurance as it is, and the fact that most medical treatments are financially out of reach for those who are not covered, this will probably only exaccerbate the situation unless some great social or technological discovery is made which allows anyone who desires it access to this longevity. Is this evil? Not really. Denying something to a priveleged few people simply because the masses (of which I consider myself to be a member) can not achieve it isn't right. Denying this longevity because it causes an undue burden on the rest of society, however, is not morally outrageous.
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
I accept that we could, in theory, mitigate the cellular damage that leads to aging, and humans could live much longer than they do now. There are, however, two BIG problems, in addition to the overcrowding that everyone else has mentioned.
First is cancer. Cancer is caused by DNA damage which causes cells to begin dividing uncontrollably. Humans, over our mere 100 year lifespan, face a very high risk of dying from cancer. Over a thousand years, it becomes a virtual certainty that at least a handful of your cells would have a very harmful mutation. Unless we also have the technology to periodically "refresh" all the DNA in your body (hint: unlikely), the simple fact is that after a thousand years you would have developed every kind of cancer known to man. I don't believe any medical technology could keep one of us alive that long -- if and when humans manage to extend our lifespans to the thousand year range, we won't be doing it in our current bodies.
Second is psychology. The human mind did not evolve to last a thousand years, and asking it to operate so far outside of its design parameters is bound to have some surprising (and likely unpleasant) effects. In fact, I am very skeptical that anyone could even hold on to sanity for that length of time. We just aren't built for that kind of time scale. We obviously don't know the effects of a truly long life on the human mind, but I just can't imagine an ordinary human lasting for a thousand years without becoming seriously disturbed.
ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
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We can't even cure hunger
...diseases caused by natural bodily functions. In cases like this, medicine is all too willing to look at simply interrupting one of the chemical reactions in the body
Yes we can. Eat.
Seriously, hunger as you refer to it is not a disease but more of a political problem. Food and other resources are controled and dispatched in such a way that some people do not get any. But we're not lacking food and, again, hunger itself is not a disease.
Again, we're facing and finding solutions to symptoms. Often, we do not have to cure anything as if it's a natural reaction, it will go away. It's the people making the choice of being treated or taking this or that pill so as to not endure the pain while it lasts. And what disease are caused by natural bodily functions?
You are more than the sum of what you consume. Desire is not an occupation.
OK, hot from the CDC we learn the following average death rates (in persons per 100,000 population per year) from causes that have nothing to do with old age:
Grand total, 66.9 per 100,000 per year. From which it follows that the average person has a 0.0669% chance of dying each year from some reason other than old age. The rough estimate of your life expectancy is then reasonably close to the inverse of this number, i.e. 1500 years.
Nice enough, but hardly forever. More troubling, however, is that these rates are for a population that is quite young. Suppose instead we use the results for old people, 85 and over, who are unfortunately far more susceptible to accidents and disease:
Grand total of 1462.8, which means your average 85-year-old has a 1.46% chance of dying each year from causes unrelated to chronic "old-age" diseases like heart attacks, strokes, and cancer. The inverse of this is 68 years, for a grand total lifespan of 153 years. Lots shorter. And wet get intermediate results if we use the results for other older age groups, but not the oldest.
Which is to say, you can only get a 1000-year lifespan if you not only defeat the usual diseases of old age (cancer, atherosclerosis, etc.) but also stop the clock on practically every consequence of aging from fading vision to slowing reflexes to slower healing to more brittle bones. A very tall order indeed.
If it is garbage (and YOU aren't full of it yourself!) what are the errors in the arguments??
Just that something hasn't been done is not a serious answer; there has been literally hundreds of "firsts" the last 150 years.
Some of the proposed solutions aren't exactly trivial -- e.g. "simply" moving genes from the mitochondria and then move back finished proteins would be a large change! (Sure, some proteins are made in the cell kernel and moved to the mitochondrias already, but to get the right levels of manufacturing, etc, etc. Not easy.)
To do that modification in living bodies seem ... well, a factor of ten harder still!
But is should be doable theoretically. And probably practically. I haven't read that much biochemistry, but I can't say that any of the points strike me as theoretically impossible.
So what is wrong?? Is the list of needed fixes incomplete?
A serious answer would be appreciated. I'm curious and you seem to be certain in your opinion. You should know, yes?
Karma: Excellent (My Karma? I wish...:-( )
MAYNARD: It reads, [reading] "`I've been feeling so streesed late....HEEEURK! bleaugh...'"
ARTHUR: What?
MAYNARD: [reading] "HEEEURK! bleaugh..."
BEDEVERE: What is that?
MAYNARD: He must have died while typing it.
LAUNCELOT: Oh, come on!
MAYNARD: Well, that's what it says.
ARTHUR: Look, if he was dying, he wouldn't bother to type 'bleaugh'. He'd just say it!
MAYNARD: Well, that's what he posted!
GALAHAD: Perhaps he was dictating.
ARTHUR: Oh, shut up.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.