New Drugs May Extend Our Lifespan to 150 Years
- Thread starter Greg Tito
- Start date
total health??? 80-100 years???? how old ARE you? you've got to be young to even dream you'll be in "total health and happiness" for 80 years. hell i'm only 28 and already starting to feel old. i can't imagine how old i'll feel when i turn 50, much less 70 or 80. no, you'll be in "total health and happiness" til you're 25, then realize you're not an unstoppable force of nature, but a frail organic life form.Baresark said:
OT: sounds amazing. i wish people would actually READ the article though, then they'd have read the part about "slowing the aging process", rather than assume 70 on the drug and 70 off would feel the same, and at 120 they'd be a walking corpse.
Unless the ingredients are cheap I don't think so. Making it available to the middle and working classes would also create a sort of discrimination between those who take the drug and those who don't since you'd have to raise the retirement age.SmashLovesTitanQuest said:
I thought that human lifespan hasn't changed that dramatically, instead the numbers are skewed due to lower infant mortality rates?
Greg Tito said:
exactly. society itself would have to change so damn much just because of this, plus that would suck so freaking much, working for close to 90-100 years...
fuck that, plus i don't want to be a super shriveled up burden on society when i get that old, not to mention the population fluxes that would take place..
too many consequences for such small selfish benefits.
So I'm going to have to work for, at least, another 120 years before I reach retirement age? No thanks.
I'm still holding out for Telomerase to allow me to live forever - so long as they figure out how to also make it not accelerate cancer cells. However, this is another weapon in the arsenal, as it were.
While resveratol won't stop the overall degeneration of the human body there is research into other ways of extending life. One that I know of is extending the Telomeres that protect our genes from the damage caused by chromosome replication. This will probably reduce the amount of degeneration our bodies suffer in old age, though some of it will always be our lifestyles, genetics, and environmental influences.j-e-f-f-e-r-s said:
While I do agree that this is probaly not the best thing I would not go so far as to blame it on narcisism or completely condemn the research. People fear death, that is plain and simple. This allows us to postpone it and provides the stepping stone to completely banishing natural death. Of course people are going to look into this and develop it. If they do, not going to lie, I will be in line for it. Sure the world will probably have to adjust in order to accommodate for the extended lifespan but I don't think it will crush the world. The vast majority of the growing population is in third world countries where the average lifespan is in the 40's and 50's. These people would not be able to acquire whatever drug is produced.
Answer 1: I don't know, up to you. I'm not against extending life, but I'm not going to be crushed if this never comes to be or even if I spesifically can not use it. Planning on cyborging it up once that tech is available anyways.Ruwrak said:
Answer 2: Depending on what they are focusing on to extend the lifespan then it could very well slow the physical degeneration caused by aging. However part of the aging process will always be the surrounding environment, stress, and personal choices.
Answer... 3?: From an objective standpoint nothing is 'supposed' to happen in nature and it does not have a set course. Just because everything we know has a finite lifespan does not mean that extending our own through scientific means is 'wrong'. Actually, seeing as every scrap of scientific knowledge we have gained came from nature I wouldn't even call the process "Unnatural".
If this gene stops aging, I'd we'd age at slower rate, and not at the same rate, just getting older and more fragile.
I'm conflicted about this, to be honset. On one hand, I don't think this drug would be a good thing. Life is sacred, and all that jazz, but there comes a point where we can't hold our shit together. If you look at whats going on in the world, thats already happening now.
If you extend everyones lives, even by 10 years, your throwing a lot of things out of balance. The strain humanity has on the ecosystem, and its own internal systems, is already taxing enough. Death is the great equilizer - its not a good thing, but its neccisary to maintain balance. If we have individuals living longer, there will be more people on the planet at any given time. Which leads to ground to bacterial and viral mutations at a much faster rate (making us more seseptible to getting sick/a lethal pandemic), it strains our natural resource supply (including food and drinking water), and adds more strain to our already delicate systems of government, society, religion, etc.
On the other hand, living longer is great. No one really wants to accept their own mortality, and will fight tooth and nail to stay young. Not to mention, atleast to the athiests, we only live once. If you are an atheist, you belive this is your one life, and when its gone, you are too. I don't follow the athiests creed, I'm a Christian, but hey. Big world, lots of opinions.
So yeah. If it works, cool. If it doesnt, also cool. I just wonder what this will lead to.
I'm conflicted about this, to be honset. On one hand, I don't think this drug would be a good thing. Life is sacred, and all that jazz, but there comes a point where we can't hold our shit together. If you look at whats going on in the world, thats already happening now.
If you extend everyones lives, even by 10 years, your throwing a lot of things out of balance. The strain humanity has on the ecosystem, and its own internal systems, is already taxing enough. Death is the great equilizer - its not a good thing, but its neccisary to maintain balance. If we have individuals living longer, there will be more people on the planet at any given time. Which leads to ground to bacterial and viral mutations at a much faster rate (making us more seseptible to getting sick/a lethal pandemic), it strains our natural resource supply (including food and drinking water), and adds more strain to our already delicate systems of government, society, religion, etc.
On the other hand, living longer is great. No one really wants to accept their own mortality, and will fight tooth and nail to stay young. Not to mention, atleast to the athiests, we only live once. If you are an atheist, you belive this is your one life, and when its gone, you are too. I don't follow the athiests creed, I'm a Christian, but hey. Big world, lots of opinions.
So yeah. If it works, cool. If it doesnt, also cool. I just wonder what this will lead to.
These isn't exactly new. I've known this was possible since I was 8. You guys really should start reading more science magazines.
I agree that expanded our lifespan is a good thing, we've been doing it since the dawn of mankind. The problem is keeping quality of life with these extra years.
My great-grandmother is 95 this year. She's very frail but her mind is 100% intact, I was talking to her the other day and she was telling me all about the house she grew up in, rattling off dates and names easily. What's sad is she can't stand how her body is failing her, she still lives by herself and refuses to move in with family or a nursing home. She fell down last month and couldn't stand back up, and instead of calling for help on her phone, which was in each, she spent the day on the floor dragging herself around and sleeping on the ground. Luckily her neighbour checked up on her the next day and helped her.
Whenever I see her, she always tells me to not live past 90. I find this very upsetting.
My great-grandmother is 95 this year. She's very frail but her mind is 100% intact, I was talking to her the other day and she was telling me all about the house she grew up in, rattling off dates and names easily. What's sad is she can't stand how her body is failing her, she still lives by herself and refuses to move in with family or a nursing home. She fell down last month and couldn't stand back up, and instead of calling for help on her phone, which was in each, she spent the day on the floor dragging herself around and sleeping on the ground. Luckily her neighbour checked up on her the next day and helped her.
Whenever I see her, she always tells me to not live past 90. I find this very upsetting.