Nothing like time and a changing world to change a person. I'm sorry that you had that type of experience, but is that any reason to advocate that the non-racist/non-homophobic individuals should die?
The 'natural' order of things is such that by what you are saying, someone should have stood up in the early 1900's when we were proposing lowering infant mortalilty and premature death with antibiotics and said "Look at all the people that aren't going to die! We're going to create a population explosion! Let's just not increase medical care so that those who would have died a 'natural' death in a 'natural' world won't live to give us this little 'overpopulation' problem.
Your reasoning is weak, flawed, and unethical..
You might consider that the majority of the advances of science that have allowed you to be typing on this "unnatural" computer were originally discovered by all those "old" people with all those "unoriginal" ideas... Young people.. although they may have fresh perspectives, have to live a long time to get to the level of expertise that older individuals already have..
In regards to overpopulation.. as cultures rise in affluence and economic ability, birth rates go down.. In third world countries children are still considered 'wealth' as they can contribute to the family incomes as early as the age of five.. What we need is a more equitable distribution of wealth which would be encouraged by the increased altruism of an elderly population, not the dog eat dog world that you seem to be tied to..
The box that your thinking is confined to is built on extrapolations of current paradigms that would no longer exist in a world of increased health and longevity.
What would exist would be the knowledge that we would be around to live in an environment of our own creation and to answer for the situations created by short term thinking. Perhaps this would give people pause before polluting or using up precious resources for short term gain.
The human race as it now exists is still evolving..and hopefully we will gain some maturity which longer lifespans may allow and avoid the perpetual crib death we constantly seem to be threateing ourselves with.
The problems you talk about are a pur example of this immaturity.. stretch your mind a little and maybe have some hope to dilute your cynicism.
We get more willing to look past materialistic pursuits as we age because by the time we're older, we realize what is really important in life is the people and the relationships in it.
By the time we realize it, life is over, and we need to hunker down to prepare for uncertain health in old age.
I wonder what the world would be like if my grandparents were still around and healthy and vibrant as say.. 40 year olds? I wonder what the world would be like if the wisdom and compassion that accumulates with age was allowed to be expressed by vibrant and energetic elderly instead of being locked up in the shadows we become?
Really what we are talking about here a child understands and we fatalistically complicate things with our hopelessness that anything can be done about aging..
Life is good.
Death is bad
and anyone who suggests that the suffering and death of millions is desirable and that the "negative" changes to our world that would come about by extending life couldn't be dealt with should take a real hard look at what they are saying...From what I've been able to see so far.. our world could do with a few changes. br
I haven't seen anyone comment yet on the the saving that come with life-extension. Currently the societal burden of looking after debilitated and sick seniors could break the back of the health care system if the trend goes unchecked. Especially as the baby boomers begin reaching their retirement age.
It is estimated that at the current rate that the health care system could be bankrupt within 25 years. Which doesn't leave much hope for those coming after. It is also estimated that the savings that would be realized by pushing back the onset of Alzheimers by just ONE YEAR would be approximately 3-4 BILLION dollars... Hmm... I wonder if we could use a little of that for something more constructive than napkins to dab the drool out of grandma's mouth.. and I'm sure grandma would appreciate the effort..
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.
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
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..
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:
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.
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!
First of all, the birthrate would have to be chopped. Deathrate would have to be equal to the birthrate. The population growth formula cannot stand to have the death factor nulled out. A population that has large growth with little death is a cancer, a danger to the ecosystem
I disagree in that birthrates are declining in all but 8 countries of the world and by the year 2050 the US, given the current trends, the US will have a steady population. As well, fertility rates have dropped and are continuing to drop drastically, 50% in Europe and in certain populations of western Canada. I dont' think overpopulation will be a something we have to worry about.
As a practical matter, turnover in people is essential to clean out the social arteries. I've grown accustomed to the idea that I should die so that someone younger and less conservative can take over and shake things up.
Actually if you look at how 'turnover in people' has operated, it doesn't do a very good job of cleaning out the social arteries. Social dyansties are passed down through familial lines and you merely move generations up a peg. Case in point is the Bush family.
In terms of moving over and letting the young take over and shake things up, don't you feel that future generations might benefit from your perspective? Do you have to die to let the young 'take over' and if you were healthy with many years left in front of you, would you not want to explore other 'new' ideas that an older person might have? I think it is a little defeatist and a waste of talent for you to so glibly remove yourself from the picture.
A large population of old, conservative property owners will smother the young, who can never catch up with the accumulated wisdom and wealth of people decades or even centuries older than they.
I think you are in error in assuming that the accumulated wisdom of the aged (and their wealth for that matter) will be withheld from the young. They are still the children of the aged, and if fertility rates drop, there will be likely the reverse happening with the young being coddled and spoiled rotten... much like todays children. Regardless there will be plenty of frontiers for them to conquer in space and undersea exploration. New ideas for a new age.
Wealth inequities will inevitably create a class of wealthy near-immortals in the short term. Wealth will buy better anti-aging treatments; poverty, nearly none. If you think the not-wealthy can be cranky now, wait until they see the wealthy stay alive indefinitely, while they die. As Heinlein said so long ago in Metheuselah's Children, Death is the Great Democrat, treating all alike. If class or wealth grant exemptions from the Equalizer, there will be hell to pay.
I agree with you here. Life extending technologies should be made as widely available as quickly as possible. There are more than a few approaches which promise cheap life extending possiblities. Check out Ceremedix and there clinical trials of the neurotrophic factor, ependymin for example.
How's memory going to work, when accumulated experience overwhelms the brains ability to cross-reference it all?
You are assuming here that the brain is incapable of storing a certain amount of information. So far this limit has not been detected. Memories are stored in the connections of the neurons with the more vivid 'permanent' memories showing up as permanent alterations in neuronal structure. If the brain has a natural limit that is exceeded over the centuries I'm sure that it will be at the expense of 'old files' that rarely get used. For the more transitory memories, the old maxim, use or lose it, will apply then as it does now.
How will an immortal make a living? They can't be retired. It's financially impossible.
Retirement is proving to be one of the most unhealthy things for people. A life lived unproductively is mentally and physically showing itself to be quite harmful. Luckily in living many more
"If human beings were free of disease & senescence the only causes of death would be accident, suicide & homicide. Under such conditions it is estimated that from a population of one billion, a 12-year-old would have a median lifespan of 1,200 years and a maximum lifespan of 25,000 years (ie, one-in-a-billion would live the maximum 25,000 years)."
The whole thing is self balancing now.. the birth rate of almost every country in the world is declining according to the latest UN statistics and is not even at replacement rates in much of the developed world. Far from being overpopulated we may well have to enlist the help of invitro fertilization if the problems of increasing sterility aren't solved soon.
You wrote an awful lot, but seem to have very little grasp of the actual processes which underlie ageing.
The predominant theory of ageing is that the bodies tissues become progressively more and more damaged by the byproducts of the combustion of sugar in the cell. We eventually wear out.
You may have heard of 'free radicals'. You can think of them as the sparks that are produced by the fire burning inside the small 'organelles' called mitochondria that every cell requires to produce the energy it needs to do its' job.
These 'free radicals' land on surrounding structures and molecules in the cell and turn them into dysfunctional and sometimes dangerous molecules.
The body produces natural 'antioxidants' to help prevent damage and we do get a lot of antioxidants in our diet, but eventually our defences are worn down and our repair mechanisms get damaged.
The damage to the cell is being shown to give rise to almost all age-related illnesses from Alzheimers to Parkinsons to Diabetes and Heart Failure.
New strategies for helping the body combat aging will be to help in produce more antioxidants. You can check on a company called Ceremedix who is inventing a pill, a cheap pill, to do just that.
You say we need to find the root of heart disease, well at least as far as hardening of the arteries and many other cardio vascular problems, we've found it... now all we need to do is get people pushing for some results out of their politicians!
and you'll have to listen your 1000 year old grandpa's "back when I was a youngster" stories for a lot longer... but then you'd have a few of your own I guess..
How does our dying help feed the people in the third world?
Do you not think that the perspective of an older and more than likely wiser individual might not be a little different concerning the fate of the world and the environment. If you had a lifespan of 500 or so years to look forward to and you were financially independent, do you think, like most older financially independent people today, they might be even more qualified to help solve the problems of an immature society.
Perhaps what we really need is a maturing of society so that we aren't like so many fireflies, winking out before we can shed any real light!
I'm encouraged that these articles hopefully mark the awakening of a public that want to live. I talk to so many people who seem to be bent on heading for that hole in the ground JUST because they are SURE.. ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY, 100 PERCENT, WITHOUT A DOUBT SURE... they are going to die...
Death and taxes..
maybe we'll only have to worry about the taxes and how much compound interest we're going to be making while we do something productive with all that extra life..
For example, what if Hitler had some immortality pill? Or Usama bin Laden? Sadam? You can run, but you can't hide. If you were able to evade someone killing you, you can't evade nature.
I'm sure there would be an immortal George Bush on the track of the immortal Hitler.
Another example, racist generations. It's hard to remove their racist feelings, but nature takes care of that by killing their entire generation off. This allows society to evolve. If they were still around today, it would be hard for society to improve
Killing societies off also allows the devolve. What would happen if you could maintain the intellect and humanitarian aspects of societies as well?
The same goes for your politician comment. What about the good politicians? And what the heck is a corrupt politician doing in power anyways. Don't you think a bunch of old people who've been around the block a time or two would be a little more involved in the electoral process and call a spade a spade. I know my dad is a LOT less tolerant of the baloney that goes on...
Since the mind only stores an abstract outline of past events and maintains them only with repeated access, old memories will fade.
This is just plain wrong...
They've shown that many memories are very enduring to the point that they resurface in our old age 'as if they were yesterday'. While it is true that many memories are transitory, the ones that are the most critical are the ones which stay with us. We would likely suffer from some sort of accident and die long before we would lose our memories.
caerus
The theory that anti-aging medicene is for the rich only may be TOTALLY wrong if studies by a San Francisco based pharamceutical company pan out. Ceremedix is a new company that is testing a protein in human clinical trials in Scotland that is said to be able to extend life to 120-160 years. The protein comes from, gold fish brains.. It's name is ependymin and it is technically what is known as a 'brain derived neurotrophic factor'.... whatever.. the upshot is that it is a NATURALLY occuring and easily isolated protein that reduces the damage of aging. It is the equivalent to eating 30 POUNDS of vegetables as it causes the body to beef up it's defences... especially in an aging body as a younger body already has good levels of antioxidants in it.
Because it is a naturally occuring substance, pharmaceutical companies haven't touched it because it wasn't 'patentable'. Ceremedix is willing to make the 'small dough' however and the pill will be very affordable as an over the counter supplement... if/when it is released..
Do you think maybe there's some room for optimism here?
The overpopulation time bomb is a social myth that is so entrenched in how we think no one ever thinks to question the truth of it. The reality is a shocker. We may instead need to have invitro fertilization in the future to keep the species alive.
With a population of about 290 million the US is assumed to be growing and that it will double in size sometime this century. The facts are that it won't.. and the world is in the same situation.
The latest demographics at the from the UN show declining birth rates ALL over the world. Typically you must have 2.1 children to keep the steady state. This isn't happening in the developed world with the effects leaking into the developing world as well.
The US, Canada, Japan, Western Europe and all of the Soviet Union all have declining birth rates with Canada the lowest at 1.52. Mexico has gone from about 7 children to 2.9... and they're a DEVELOPING country..
Male fertility in Europe has gone down by 50% in the past 20 years and the trend is occuring in the US and Canada as well. The cause is enviromental pollutants, pesticides and herbicides in food. This can account for part of the decline in birth rate however other factors such as sex education and yes... even economic affluence seem to affect the number of children people have.
Overpopulation with because of life-extension is NOT going to be a problem.
Slashdot Mirror
Nothing like time and a changing world to change a person. I'm sorry that you had that type of experience, but is that any reason to advocate that the non-racist/non-homophobic individuals should die?
I think not.
The 'natural' order of things is such that by what you are saying, someone should have stood up in the early 1900's when we were proposing lowering infant mortalilty and premature death with antibiotics and said "Look at all the people that aren't going to die! We're going to create a population explosion! Let's just not increase medical care so that those who would have died a 'natural' death in a 'natural' world won't live to give us this little 'overpopulation' problem.
Your reasoning is weak, flawed, and unethical..
You might consider that the majority of the advances of science that have allowed you to be typing on this "unnatural" computer were originally discovered by all those "old" people with all those "unoriginal" ideas... Young people.. although they may have fresh perspectives, have to live a long time to get to the level of expertise that older individuals already have..
In regards to overpopulation.. as cultures rise in affluence and economic ability, birth rates go down.. In third world countries children are still considered 'wealth' as they can contribute to the family incomes as early as the age of five.. What we need is a more equitable distribution of wealth which would be encouraged by the increased altruism of an elderly population, not the dog eat dog world that you seem to be tied to..
The box that your thinking is confined to is built on extrapolations of current paradigms that would no longer exist in a world of increased health and longevity.
What would exist would be the knowledge that we would be around to live in an environment of our own creation and to answer for the situations created by short term thinking. Perhaps this would give people pause before polluting or using up precious resources for short term gain.
The human race as it now exists is still evolving..and hopefully we will gain some maturity which longer lifespans may allow and avoid the perpetual crib death we constantly seem to be threateing ourselves with.
The problems you talk about are a pur example of this immaturity.. stretch your mind a little and maybe have some hope to dilute your cynicism.
We get more willing to look past materialistic pursuits as we age because by the time we're older, we realize what is really important in life is the people and the relationships in it.
By the time we realize it, life is over, and we need to hunker down to prepare for uncertain health in old age.
I wonder what the world would be like if my grandparents were still around and healthy and vibrant as say.. 40 year olds? I wonder what the world would be like if the wisdom and compassion that accumulates with age was allowed to be expressed by vibrant and energetic elderly instead of being locked up in the shadows we become?
Really what we are talking about here a child understands and we fatalistically complicate things with our hopelessness that anything can be done about aging..
Life is good.
Death is bad
and anyone who suggests that the suffering and death of millions is desirable and that the "negative" changes to our world that would come about by extending life couldn't be dealt with should take a real hard look at what they are saying...From what I've been able to see so far.. our world could do with a few changes.
br
I haven't seen anyone comment yet on the the saving that come with life-extension. Currently the societal burden of looking after debilitated and sick seniors could break the back of the health care system if the trend goes unchecked. Especially as the baby boomers begin reaching their retirement age.
It is estimated that at the current rate that the health care system could be bankrupt within 25 years. Which doesn't leave much hope for those coming after. It is also estimated that the savings that would be realized by pushing back the onset of Alzheimers by just ONE YEAR would be approximately 3-4 BILLION dollars... Hmm... I wonder if we could use a little of that for something more constructive than napkins to dab the drool out of grandma's mouth.. and I'm sure grandma would appreciate the effort..
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
I disagree in that birthrates are declining in all but 8 countries of the world and by the year 2050 the US, given the current trends, the US will have a steady population. As well, fertility rates have dropped and are continuing to drop drastically, 50% in Europe and in certain populations of western Canada. I dont' think overpopulation will be a something we have to worry about.
As a practical matter, turnover in people is essential to clean out the social arteries. I've grown accustomed to the idea that I should die so that someone younger and less conservative can take over and shake things up.
Actually if you look at how 'turnover in people' has operated, it doesn't do a very good job of cleaning out the social arteries. Social dyansties are passed down through familial lines and you merely move generations up a peg. Case in point is the Bush family.
In terms of moving over and letting the young take over and shake things up, don't you feel that future generations might benefit from your perspective? Do you have to die to let the young 'take over' and if you were healthy with many years left in front of you, would you not want to explore other 'new' ideas that an older person might have? I think it is a little defeatist and a waste of talent for you to so glibly remove yourself from the picture.
A large population of old, conservative property owners will smother the young, who can never catch up with the accumulated wisdom and wealth of people decades or even centuries older than they.
I think you are in error in assuming that the accumulated wisdom of the aged (and their wealth for that matter) will be withheld from the young. They are still the children of the aged, and if fertility rates drop, there will be likely the reverse happening with the young being coddled and spoiled rotten... much like todays children. Regardless there will be plenty of frontiers for them to conquer in space and undersea exploration. New ideas for a new age.
Wealth inequities will inevitably create a class of wealthy near-immortals in the short term. Wealth will buy better anti-aging treatments; poverty, nearly none. If you think the not-wealthy can be cranky now, wait until they see the wealthy stay alive indefinitely, while they die. As Heinlein said so long ago in Metheuselah's Children, Death is the Great Democrat, treating all alike. If class or wealth grant exemptions from the Equalizer, there will be hell to pay.
I agree with you here. Life extending technologies should be made as widely available as quickly as possible. There are more than a few approaches which promise cheap life extending possiblities. Check out Ceremedix and there clinical trials of the neurotrophic factor, ependymin for example.
How's memory going to work, when accumulated experience overwhelms the brains ability to cross-reference it all?
You are assuming here that the brain is incapable of storing a certain amount of information. So far this limit has not been detected. Memories are stored in the connections of the neurons with the more vivid 'permanent' memories showing up as permanent alterations in neuronal structure. If the brain has a natural limit that is exceeded over the centuries I'm sure that it will be at the expense of 'old files' that rarely get used. For the more transitory memories, the old maxim, use or lose it, will apply then as it does now.
How will an immortal make a living? They can't be retired. It's financially impossible.
Retirement is proving to be one of the most unhealthy things for people. A life lived unproductively is mentally and physically showing itself to be quite harmful. Luckily in living many more
So do you think that the technologies will have nothing to offer an old fogey? I hope not.. I'm counting on it..
"If human beings were free of disease & senescence the only causes of death would be accident, suicide & homicide. Under such conditions it is estimated that from a population of one billion, a 12-year-old would have a median lifespan of 1,200 years and a maximum lifespan of 25,000 years (ie, one-in-a-billion would live the maximum 25,000 years)."
from
http://www.benbest.com/lifeext/immortal.html
The whole thing is self balancing now.. the birth rate of almost every country in the world is declining according to the latest UN statistics and is not even at replacement rates in much of the developed world. Far from being overpopulated we may well have to enlist the help of invitro fertilization if the problems of increasing sterility aren't solved soon.
I don't think you can equate the behavior of a single cell to that of a thinking individual.
You wrote an awful lot, but seem to have very little grasp of the actual processes which underlie ageing.
The predominant theory of ageing is that the bodies tissues become progressively more and more damaged by the byproducts of the combustion of sugar in the cell. We eventually wear out.
You may have heard of 'free radicals'. You can think of them as the sparks that are produced by the fire burning inside the small 'organelles' called mitochondria that every cell requires to produce the energy it needs to do its' job.
These 'free radicals' land on surrounding structures and molecules in the cell and turn them into dysfunctional and sometimes dangerous molecules.
The body produces natural 'antioxidants' to help prevent damage and we do get a lot of antioxidants in our diet, but eventually our defences are worn down and our repair mechanisms get damaged.
The damage to the cell is being shown to give rise to almost all age-related illnesses from Alzheimers to Parkinsons to Diabetes and Heart Failure.
New strategies for helping the body combat aging will be to help in produce more antioxidants. You can check on a company called Ceremedix who is inventing a pill, a cheap pill, to do just that.
You say we need to find the root of heart disease, well at least as far as hardening of the arteries and many other cardio vascular problems, we've found it... now all we need to do is get people pushing for some results out of their politicians!
and you'll have to listen your 1000 year old grandpa's "back when I was a youngster" stories for a lot longer... but then you'd have a few of your own I guess..
Do you not think that the perspective of an older and more than likely wiser individual might not be a little different concerning the fate of the world and the environment. If you had a lifespan of 500 or so years to look forward to and you were financially independent, do you think, like most older financially independent people today, they might be even more qualified to help solve the problems of an immature society.
Perhaps what we really need is a maturing of society so that we aren't like so many fireflies, winking out before we can shed any real light!
I'm encouraged that these articles hopefully mark the awakening of a public that want to live. I talk to so many people who seem to be bent on heading for that hole in the ground JUST because they are SURE .. ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY, 100 PERCENT, WITHOUT A DOUBT SURE... they are going to die...
Death and taxes..
maybe we'll only have to worry about the taxes and how much compound interest we're going to be making while we do something productive with all that extra life..
For example, what if Hitler had some immortality pill? Or Usama bin Laden? Sadam? You can run, but you can't hide. If you were able to evade someone killing you, you can't evade nature. I'm sure there would be an immortal George Bush on the track of the immortal Hitler. Another example, racist generations. It's hard to remove their racist feelings, but nature takes care of that by killing their entire generation off. This allows society to evolve. If they were still around today, it would be hard for society to improve Killing societies off also allows the devolve. What would happen if you could maintain the intellect and humanitarian aspects of societies as well? The same goes for your politician comment. What about the good politicians? And what the heck is a corrupt politician doing in power anyways. Don't you think a bunch of old people who've been around the block a time or two would be a little more involved in the electoral process and call a spade a spade. I know my dad is a LOT less tolerant of the baloney that goes on...
Since the mind only stores an abstract outline of past events and maintains them only with repeated access, old memories will fade. This is just plain wrong... They've shown that many memories are very enduring to the point that they resurface in our old age 'as if they were yesterday'. While it is true that many memories are transitory, the ones that are the most critical are the ones which stay with us. We would likely suffer from some sort of accident and die long before we would lose our memories. caerus
The theory that anti-aging medicene is for the rich only may be TOTALLY wrong if studies by a San Francisco based pharamceutical company pan out. Ceremedix is a new company that is testing a protein in human clinical trials in Scotland that is said to be able to extend life to 120-160 years. The protein comes from, gold fish brains.. It's name is ependymin and it is technically what is known as a 'brain derived neurotrophic factor'.... whatever.. the upshot is that it is a NATURALLY occuring and easily isolated protein that reduces the damage of aging. It is the equivalent to eating 30 POUNDS of vegetables as it causes the body to beef up it's defences... especially in an aging body as a younger body already has good levels of antioxidants in it. Because it is a naturally occuring substance, pharmaceutical companies haven't touched it because it wasn't 'patentable'. Ceremedix is willing to make the 'small dough' however and the pill will be very affordable as an over the counter supplement... if/when it is released.. Do you think maybe there's some room for optimism here?
The overpopulation time bomb is a social myth that is so entrenched in how we think no one ever thinks to question the truth of it. The reality is a shocker. We may instead need to have invitro fertilization in the future to keep the species alive. With a population of about 290 million the US is assumed to be growing and that it will double in size sometime this century. The facts are that it won't.. and the world is in the same situation. The latest demographics at the from the UN show declining birth rates ALL over the world. Typically you must have 2.1 children to keep the steady state. This isn't happening in the developed world with the effects leaking into the developing world as well. The US, Canada, Japan, Western Europe and all of the Soviet Union all have declining birth rates with Canada the lowest at 1.52. Mexico has gone from about 7 children to 2.9... and they're a DEVELOPING country.. Male fertility in Europe has gone down by 50% in the past 20 years and the trend is occuring in the US and Canada as well. The cause is enviromental pollutants, pesticides and herbicides in food. This can account for part of the decline in birth rate however other factors such as sex education and yes... even economic affluence seem to affect the number of children people have. Overpopulation with because of life-extension is NOT going to be a problem.