The end of aging? If Govt's allow us...

[Justforfun000]

This article is too long to copy and paste, and it's PDF anyway. Go read it. It's truly groundbreaking. This is a very good organization and has quite the take on senescence. Canadian and American governments are putting up roadblocks for no good reason. If this research really pans out, we would have an unprecedented breakthrough in prevention or REVERSAL of the aging process.

http://www.aor.ca/mags/Advances6_SENS.pdf

Is there any reason we should be AGAINST this kind of research? I'm boggled by the Canadian law particularly.

[Jadeite]

If I could get a process to make myself immune to aging, I'd take it in a heartbeat. Non-aging doesn't guarantee immortality after all, there's always disease and accidents, and given a long enough time span, your chances of survival will eventually be zero. But that said, I'd still love a couple centuries.

[NecronLord]

The Lord GOD commands that man not live more than his allotted 120 years.

[Justforfun000]

The Lord GOD commands that man not live more than his allotted 120 years.

Well..he USED to let us live up to 1000. Maybe he'll change his mind again.

[Lagmonster]

Not again.

Look, science-fiction and the pursuit of calming the human ego aside, people need to grow old and die. Oh, sure, it might not be bad if you, personally lived forever, but extend that to the whole of the human population?

Besides which, some of the quotes in there are just idiotic. Letting people die of old age is barbaric? So, it's better to build a world where population control is achieved through murder or sudden accident?

[Justforfun000]

Look, science-fiction and the pursuit of calming the human ego aside, people need to grow old and die. Oh, sure, it might not be bad if you, personally lived forever, but extend that to the whole of the human population?

Well...ethics aside, delving into this potential is important for reasons other then just immortality. If you read the entire article, you can see the potential for cures regarding serious diseases like MS as well.

Besides which, some of the quotes in there are just idiotic. Letting people die of old age is barbaric? So, it's better to build a world where population control is achieved through murder or sudden accident?

Well they were only quoting one of the scientists who feels very passionate about the goal of anti-aging. It still doesn't change the validity of their research.

Like I said, the ethics are another whole ball of wax, but the research should definitely be allowed. There is far too much at stake to let governments lump this kind of research in with the anti-stem cell mentality arising from religious idiots objections.

[NecronLord]

Besides which, some of the quotes in there are just idiotic. Letting people die of old age is barbaric? So, it's better to build a world where population control is achieved through murder or sudden accident?

Aging in and of itself is barbaric. It is a long, degrading and lingering form of death that afflicts people without justification or exception. The problems of immortality are not being dismissed in the quote, and if you can't see that, you damn well should.

[Faram]

Humans living much longer than now would be the worst thing to ever befall this poor planet.

The resources are scarce even now, and if people will countinue to be born but no one would die... (BTW My cousin gave birth to a baby daughter today, congrats to her )

Anywys untill we can supplie everyone now living on the planet weith a torable life conditions, there is no way that the society or anything else can stand much longer lifespan.

[Enforcer Talen]

Im all for it. I figure itll encourage a space project.

You need to have *somewhere* for the 2 billion new baby boomers. . .

[Lagmonster]

Aging in and of itself is barbaric. It is a long, degrading and lingering form of death that afflicts people without justification or exception.

How is old age barbaric, especially when compared to any other form of death, such as disease or murder? This might be a definitions game, but wouldn't it be correct to list unnatural forms of death as cruel and inhumane, and natural death as morally neutral?

The problems of immortality are not being dismissed in the quote, and if you can't see that, you damn well should.

My problem is that he out and out dismisses ANY argument against his quest to stop the aging process as irrelevant, because "letting people die is bad". Without additional justification or clarification, that tells me that he hasn't thought this through beyond a dysfunctional concept of right and wrong.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Besides which, some of the quotes in there are just idiotic. Letting people die of old age is barbaric? So, it's better to build a world where population control is achieved through murder or sudden accident?

Aging in and of itself is barbaric. It is a long, degrading and lingering form of death that afflicts people without justification or exception. The problems of immortality are not being dismissed in the quote, and if you can't see that, you damn well should.

The ideal situation would be one where we eliminate, or drastically curtail the inexorable degradation of health of an individual towards their death. Most health care costs in a person's life are incurred during the last few months or years of their lives, and this tends to be quite the burden on society, as it drives up healthcare costs, and forces governments to find ways of supporting populations increasingly incapable of supporting themselves. Not to mention the hardship this method of dying tends to inflict on the families of those afflicted.

What most of the anti-aging research will hopefully deliver is a long life where a person retains a large measure of their independence and health until one day, they just keel over and die. (This is what seems to happen to the mice we've experimented on. They live longer, they're healthier, robust, and active . . . until one day when they just wake up dead.)

[NecronLord]

How is old age barbaric, especially when compared to any other form of death, such as disease or murder? This might be a definitions game, but wouldn't it be correct to list unnatural forms of death as cruel and inhumane, and natural death as morally neutral?

Nothing is unnatural. Humans are part of nature, and are by extension, not capable of acting unnaturally. The only thing that could ever be unnatural is a diety or somesuch.

[Lagmonster]

Well...ethics aside, delving into this potential is important for reasons other then just immortality. If you read the entire article, you can see the potential for cures regarding serious diseases like MS as well.

Assuming this is even possible - I still haven't read the article to its fullest and would love to hear his solution to apoptosis - sure, make life a better thing. That's not my problem. Let him research until his ass turns blue. It is the suggested or intended application that I disagree with, and, in other words, the basis of his intentions.

Like I said, the ethics are another whole ball of wax, but the research should definitely be allowed. There is far too much at stake to let governments lump this kind of research in with the anti-stem cell mentality arising from religious idiots objections.

Anti-stem cell objections are generally stupid, yes, but that might not be the only reason his peers aren't taking him seriously. You'll notice the article quotes the fact that in Canada, embryonic stem cell research is legal, but SENC or whatever the acronym was IS prohibited. I don't know WHY that is, but I'll wager it isn't over stem cells or religious lunacy. For all we know the type of experiments suggested are dangerous to either the researcher or the subjects, or else the experiments are unacceptably uncontrolled due to the poor competence of the groups petitioning for access - excellent and far more common reasons for government to prohibit something.

[NecronLord]

Anyway, back to the topic. Old age and disease are rather unpleasant ways to die, all told. You don't think of them that way, because you're raised to accept them. Only when something freaky makes them happen at an untimely age (I do believe there's a rare condition that starts the degeneration in early childhood) does the fact that it's really rather horrible normally occur to you.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Keep dreaming. The are good reasons we don't want a population to cheat death, our huge numbers already are alarming as it is given the explosion in numbers of people in the past couple of centuries. Unless you want an extremely slow reproduction rate or limits similar to a eugenic programme, the gov't won't allow people to help themselves to some magical anti-ageing potion.

Death is a part of life. You cannot cheat it. There is a point behind accepting death since you will inevitably have to face it sooner or later, be it someone else before your own.

[Enforcer Talen]

Ive no doubt we will all die, I just want to put it off a few years.

[Morilore]

Keep dreaming. The are good reasons we don't want a population to cheat death, our huge numbers already are alarming as it is given the explosion in numbers of people in the past couple of centuries. Unless you want an extremely slow reproduction rate or limits similar to a eugenic programme, the gov't won't allow people to help themselves to some magical anti-ageing potion.

In all likelihood, an anti-aging device would be available only to those sufficiently wealthy to already have a low birthrate. Furthermore, it will almost certainly be gradual, whereby you push the average lifespan to 80, then 90, and so on. You do realize our huge numbers are largely concentrated in less-wealthy areas of the world, right?

Death is a part of life. You cannot cheat it. There is a point behind accepting death since you will inevitably have to face it sooner or later, be it someone else before your own.

You're right, lets all just accept death right now. Fuck that, I'm going down fighting. In ancient or primitive societies, everyone accepted death because death was everywhere and life was worthless. Nowadays we call it a tragedy when someone below the age of 40 dies; that's called progress.

[Admiral Valdemar]

In all likelihood, an anti-aging device would be available only to those sufficiently wealthy to already have a low birthrate. Furthermore, it will almost certainly be gradual, whereby you push the average lifespan to 80, then 90, and so on. You do realize our huge numbers are largely concentrated in less-wealthy areas of the world, right?

Yes, and this has what to do with the overcrowding in the developed world?

You're right, lets all just accept death right now. Fuck that, I'm going down fighting. In ancient or primitive societies, everyone accepted death because death was everywhere and life was worthless. Nowadays we call it a tragedy when someone below the age of 40 dies; that's called progress.

Show me where I said we should all lie down and invite the Grim Reaper before we even had a mid-life crisis. Like it or not, YOU ARE GOING TO DIE. If this is a shock to you, you have my sympathy. That does not mean we can't have a long, healthy life. But anyone trying to cheat death as long as possible and to hell with the consequences (and at a large scale) is going to find it's a bad idea. It's bad enough with the current lack of young workers and overabundance of OAPs nowadays which is crippling many nations and their pension plans or healthcare services. If economics doesn't kill this idea, nature will.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Frankly, old age is a rather nasty way to die; if avoiding it means I have to give up the right to reproduce or something, I'm for it.

Over the years, I've seen three major organized sources of opposition to antiaging : life insurance companies, environmentalists and the Catholic Church. I have no sympathy for the first or last, and I think the second have screwed up priorities in this.

[Admiral Valdemar]

If you don't die from your body decomposing (which it will no matter how good your anti-ageing cream is, your brain cannot be replaced or regenerated that way) you'll die from another cause, be it disease or a road traffic accident or a murderer or whatever. There is no dignity in death, so at least try and live your life with it, because it's just one chance you have.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Death is a part of life. You cannot cheat it. There is a point behind accepting death since you will inevitably have to face it sooner or later, be it someone else before your own.

You're right, lets all just accept death right now. Fuck that, I'm going down fighting. In ancient or primitive societies, everyone accepted death because death was everywhere and life was worthless. Nowadays we call it a tragedy when someone below the age of 40 dies; that's called progress.

Are you aware of a concept in economics called "The Law of Diminishing Returns"? It's simple: After a certain point, the benefits gained from doing a certain thing will diminish. You have to evaluate the benefits of a longer-lived, healthier population, versus the costs of maintaining those people for the extra years they're living.

There will rapidly come a point where the maximum benefit of improving the aggregate life-expectancy of all the peoples of the world will be achieved. After which, monies for such research will dry up. Not that this will happen all at once, mind you . . . the research priorities of each nation will have different shifting points, based on the cost/benefit analyses of those holding the purse-strings.

In the United States, and other First World industrialized nations, we'll probably hit this point within the next half-century. By that time, I predict that a baby born can expect to live to the age of 90, and expect to do so in good health. They may even have quite a good chance of breaking 100-110 years.

I will be surprised if anyone lives much past 130-150 years. (Continuously. It may be remotely, infintesimally possible that someone born today could well be alive 1,000 years from now, because they signed up to be aboard a starship traveling a fair portion of the speed of light.) Now I admit that there may be some especially rich and eccentric people who will avail themselves of every treatment possible, but there won't be some magic bullet that will permit them to live for centuries while the rest of us live for our one century.

[NecronLord]

and overabundance of OAPs nowadays which is crippling many nations and their pension plans or healthcare services. If economics doesn't kill this idea, nature will.

If the ideas of the document came to pass, that wouldn't really be an issue. People would retire, but not permanantly - they'd have to go back to work for money.

In any case, yes. It's only feisable to elfize everyone if it is combined with expansion to fill all available space. Starting with O'Neill habitats (and the like) and offworld colonies.

Like it or not, YOU ARE GOING TO DIE.

The idea is to prevent you doing so from age, not claim to be invunerable.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I'd like to live longer, hell, I'd pay good money to be able to live to 100 and still feel 20, or at least 40 (whatever that's like; I'll find out, sadly). But like nanotech erasing economics, science breaking the laws of physics; medicine curing death is not going to happen, and even if it did, there are more problems in there to balance out the equation other than "I'm too young to become worm feast".

You should all be thankful that because of our massive advances in science, engineering and medicine, we already live on average twice as long as those a few centuries ago did. We also are able to produce cuddly, nappy soiling babies without too much difficulty. TB and measles tended to be seen as nastier than a simple jab for your kid back in those days. If I can still wipe my own arse when I'm retired, I'll be thankful. Anything else is a nice bonus.

Like it or not, YOU ARE GOING TO DIE.

The idea is to prevent you doing so from age, not claim to be invunerable.

Which is the crux of my argument, given unless you happen to actually be the Man of Steel, you are going to die of age sooner or later, if not, something else similarly gruesome involving "death" will take you. And I didn't even have to look in my textbook that time.

[Darth Fanboy]

Nothing is unnatural. Humans are part of nature, and are by extension, not capable of acting unnaturally. The only thing that could ever be unnatural is a diety or somesuch.

So you think Michael Jackson is God?

[NecronLord]

I'd like to live longer, hell, I'd pay good money to be able to live to 100 and still feel 20, or at least 40 (whatever that's like; I'll find out, sadly). But like nanotech erasing economics, science breaking the laws of physics; medicine curing death is not going to happen, and even if it did, there are more problems in there to balance out the equation other than "I'm too young to become worm feast".

Indeed.

You should all be thankful that because of our massive advances in science, engineering and medicine, we already live on average twice as long as those a few centuries ago did. We also are able to produce cuddly, nappy soiling babies without too much difficulty. TB and measles tended to be seen as nastier than a simple jab for your kid back in those days. If I can still wipe my own arse when I'm retired, I'll be thankful. Anything else is a nice bonus.

Y'know, if you keep patronising me like this, I'm going over to Lancaster with a cricket bat... I do know all that.

Which is the crux of my argument, given unless you happen to actually be the Man of Steel,

Now that you mention it *gets out the 'live forever as a necron' sales pitch.*

you are going to die of age sooner or later, if not, something else similarly gruesome involving "death" will take you. And I didn't even have to look in my textbook that time.

Indeed.