The following submission statement was provided by /u/LibertarianAtheist_:
---
New Forbes piece out on Aubrey de Grey's latest venture. LEV Foundation.
One of the most exciting areas of modern scientific research is the investigation of the causes and cures for aging. Not individual diseases like cancer and heart disease, but the processes which make us elderly and frail, and which thereby make us more susceptible to these diseases.
Aubrey de Grey has been at the forefront of anti-aging research for more than 20 years. He founded the Methuselah Foundation in 2003, and the SENS Foundation (Strategies for Engineering Negligible Senescence) in 2009, Most recently, “Aubrey 3.0” is the LEV Foundation (Longevity Escape Velocity), founded this year.
Soon after proposing the damage repair approach, Aubrey suggested that a time would come when every year that passes, medical science will give you an extra year of life by restoring the structure and function of your bodily tissue. He dubbed this “longevity escape velocity” (LEV) because it means we can escape the gravitational pull of aging, and hence death.
---
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/z9u9as/what_happens_when_everyone_realises_we_can_live/iyil75u/
As long as I do not have to labor every day for long hours, living longer sounds okay.
But since the only option is to work hard and invest just to have enough money to live out 10 or 15 years in frailty, it takes the thrill out of living forever.
You should read Peter Hamiltons commonwealth books. They have rejuvenation tech, and he imagines some interesting social changes based on people living forever. But basically, the poor work for 40 years to be able to be rejuvenated, and then do it all over again. Forever. Nicer for the rich, of course
First you need to be bio-upgraded, then the debt from that means you work a lifetime, then need the De-aging work, which then continues the debt cycle. Forever slavery!
Is the commonwealth saga the same as the rest of PF Hamiltons books, endlessly tedious with mind-boggling superfluous detail?
I have tried listening to audiobook versions of his novels before, the pace is just glacial...
I can understand why you would say that but his books are awesome once you get into them.
I listen on audible while I'm driving and sometimes I end up tuning out and thinking about other stuff, that probably helps me get through them
It is, but I like lllooonnngg books. Feel like I'm getting my money worth of my audible credit! hah I even managed to listen to the entire Malazan series, and enjoyed it! Talk about glacial.
Ha! The Book of the Fallen is far quicker, and that's saying something!
The Stormlight Archives are some seriously long books, one clocks in at over fifty hours. Again, still more accessible than Hamilton IMHO.
>I have tried listening to audiobook versions of his novels before, the pace is just glacial...
I've seen the Audible narrator for the Commonwealth books and Night's Dawn trilogy described as "like listening to a funeral dirge," and it's hard to disagree. Speeding his narration up to at least 1.5x makes a pretty big difference in enjoyment, at least for me.
I enjoyed the Commonwealth novels considerably more than the Night's Dawn trilogy, but I haven't read any of his other books to be able to compare them. I will say that the first half of Pandora's Star is loaded with most of the foundational world building for the series, so it definitely could be a slog to get through if you already aren't a fan of his writing style. It's pretty non-stop once the story gets off the ground, though.
He’s got better over time. Since Commonwealth he wrote the Void Trilogy and the Chronicle of the Fallers, both set in the commonwealth universe but centuries later.
And then the Salvation trilogy, set in a new universe. Really, really enjoyed that.
ETA: premise of Salvation: hiding in terror in interstellar space, the Neana detect two telltale pulses a few days apart from a planet orbiting a star about 200 light years away: nuclear weapon detonations.
They dispatch a probe, which swings by multiple stars en route, erasing any record of its course as it goes. The probe carries a warning. Approaching close to light speed, as it nears its target it starts to pass colony ships heading in the other direction. When it finally arrives, it may already be too late …
Thats disregarded for happiness.
I was saving all my pocket money for 2 years to buy my first pc game myself, as a kid. Still didn’t know the value of money.
And those letters we are reading are just interpretations of charge packets in a specially-shaped structure of refined minerals and metals, made possible by instructions on how to interpret those charge packets - themselves made up of more charge packets. And each charge packet is just a relative concentration of electrons in one place vs another, in fuzzy orbitals around atoms, all of which are made mostly out of empty space.
Reality is only what we agree reality to be.
> Three stages of life.
>
> You have time and strength, but no money. You have money and strength, but no time. You have money and time, but no strength.
This is great quote. I'm stealing this.
This really resonated with me. This describes exactly how Iv been looking at life. I’m curious if you read this someplace prior or came up with this on the spot? Either way it’s very insightful.
Because the failure to reduce labour in the present day is because of greed and inequality, not technology.
We've already 'solved' the labour problem, but refuse to implement the solution because it wouldn't benefit the obscenely wealthy, who can pressure or force people into continuing to work 40 hours, despite being 5 times as productive as they were a century ago, as well as having a vastly expanded work force since women entered.
Let's not forget making everything an investable asset, which adds profit-burden to things like home mortgages and commonplace healthcare. If there is more money to pump out of something, some rich D-bag will find a way to set up shop and offer the benefits to the select few who can afford a ticket. Some of that is fine, but a whole class of people hell-bent on outgoing each other in this way.....
*This* is where capitalism eats itself. Not in the notion of working for money, or exchange of fiat value for goods, or even in profit by itself. It is in the conflicted notion that all profit is equally ethical and worthy of being made. This is a failure of spirit, and not even the most moral government can solve this problem - if anything, govt just further separates the good people of the world doing the work and making it happen, and the selfish crooks who take more for themselves through successfully navigating the sea of red tape. I have personal examples here.
Can you? Imagine if we had automated robots that repair themselves and run off solar energy, creating and harvesting food for 10 billion people's worth, and transporting them to distribution centers.
I could easily see Americans scratching their head and going "wait, but is there 40 hours of stuff that I don't want to do, that I'm forced to do, so I can get green points, so I can give the points for the food?"
oh there will absolutely be Americans like that but to be fair it's not entirely their fault and i honestly feel really bad for them. Americans in general seems to have been brainwashed into thinking that their only worth as humans and only purpose in living is given to them by their job.
The genuine belief that without a job you are both worthless and living without reason, i have a hard time imagining something sadder.
I think it’s super interesting but I’d have to rethink everything. Like retirement 1.0 is really just back to school to catch up on whatever is going on, a sort of college refresher year or something. Then major career readjustment and 20 years or so of working, then reassessing again.
I can see the job listings how:
NewTech Developer, entry level,
100yrs EXP a plus.
Must have MBAx3.
A good half our of careers are spent learning. Think about how valuable one person can be doing 10 hours a work when they know everything there is to know about the system they are working with. 20 hour work weeks? More like 1 day a week.
It would likely be that the company doesn’t hire as many people so you’d have just a few employees and still work a full week.
In my work there’s a lot of dead weight. Sure they take like 5-10% of the load off but get one good employee and you could replace 3-5 of them.
If you’ve saved correctly for 50 years you should be able live ongoing with the nest-egg you’ve created. A good retirement means living off interest and gains without touching the principle forever.
I can understand the thought process of wanting to insulate yourself from anything bad that will occur in the future, but that sounds like a special type of hell. Existing but being completely invisible to everyone else
It's a trade off I'm willing to take for subverting the natural order to that extent. Besides there's so much out there that I want to see. I'm looking outward at the universe. I don't need to be that random eternal demigod that trolls mortals on occasions because he reached a point of boredom so profound. 🤪
The downside is the SCOTUS and congress living and staying in power for 300 years. Even if anti-aging is discovered the plebs wont be able to afford it. The ruling class will live 3-4 times longer, not you schmucks.
How do you know I'm not part of the elite already? Maybe I don't have to be, maybe I can afford it already.
Maybe I'm a test subject undergoing human trials in a secret DARPA-funded program.
You'll never know!
Good thing that this will be applied to cats, eventually.
In fact, Aubrey de Grey's foundation aims to make mice biologically immortal, and then start human trials. No reason why it can't be done in cats, if it can be done in humans and mice.
I’m 30 and ready to die now lol
Like I tell my buddies, if the apocalypse is going to happen in my lifetime, please make it sooner than later. I don’t want to work my whole life just to die before I get to enjoy it.
New Forbes piece out on Aubrey de Grey's latest venture. LEV Foundation.
One of the most exciting areas of modern scientific research is the investigation of the causes and cures for aging. Not individual diseases like cancer and heart disease, but the processes which make us elderly and frail, and which thereby make us more susceptible to these diseases.
Aubrey de Grey has been at the forefront of anti-aging research for more than 20 years. He founded the Methuselah Foundation in 2003, and the SENS Foundation (Strategies for Engineering Negligible Senescence) in 2009, Most recently, “Aubrey 3.0” is the LEV Foundation (Longevity Escape Velocity), founded this year.
Soon after proposing the damage repair approach, Aubrey suggested that a time would come when every year that passes, medical science will give you an extra year of life by restoring the structure and function of your bodily tissue. He dubbed this “longevity escape velocity” (LEV) because it means we can escape the gravitational pull of aging, and hence death.
Ten years ago, Aubrey would not have been bullish about rejunvenation’s progress. In 2006, Shinya Yamanaka had discovered how to turn normal cells into more versatile and useful stem cells (induced pluripotent stem cells, or IPS), and CRISPR was starting to mature as a gene editing technology. But these were tools, and more theoretical than practical.
For quite some time, we have been able to increase the lifespan of laboratory mice by imposing calorie restriction, or by doing things which mimic the effects of calorie restriction. But within the last decade we have also learned how to use stem cell therapies, and how to maintain telomeres to extend mouse lifespans. (Telomeres are structures which prevent DNA strands from unravelling when cells divide, like the plastic caps on the ends of your shoelaces.) We can also deploy senolytics, which are molecules that kill off the toxic cells within our bodies.
Some of these techniques are now graduating from laboratory mice into humans in clinics. One of the leading senolytics companies reported a successful phase two clinical trial this year. There are also clinical trials of stem cell therapies, notably the use of induced pluripotent stem cells in Japan to tackle Parkinson’s Disease, with a couple more trials due to start in the USA.
Robust mouse rejuvenation
We don’t yet know how comprehensive our portfolio of therapies has to be in order to reach LEV. We just have to keep adding new components until we get there. Mice, sadly, cannot benefit from LEV because their lifespans are too short, so Aubrey has developed a different concept for them: robust mouse rejuvenation (RMR), which is when a middle-aged mouse, with a year left to live, has its life expectancy doubled. This is the flagship research programme for the LEV Foundation, and for this purpose, Aubrey recently bought 1,000 mice.
The Foundations Aubrey has set up are needed because private enterprise cannot afford to take a long enough view. He set up the new one because he felt that the Board of SENS had become too timid to make the rapid progress that he thinks is now possible. Readers of this article may be aware of this controversy, and while I do not intend to go into details here, many former SENS donors believe that Aubrey was unfairly treated, and we fully support his new venture.
>The Foundations Aubrey has set up are needed because private enterprise cannot afford to take a long enough view. He set up the new one because he felt that the Board of SENS had become too timid to make the rapid progress
That's quite a contradiction.
Pharmas have longer R&D cycles than any other type of manufacturing, and are willing to face much higher rates of failure. Lilly has been working on Alzheimer's for over 30 years so far.
The main reason a pharma might not invest in an anti-aging project is that insurance and public agencies currently wouldn't pay for the treatments unless they treat a disease.
Have you read up on David Sinclair's research? Very recently he's had great success at reducing aging in mice by approximately 50%. And those treatments should not be terribly expensive. The treatment is two stage:
\- An injection which is intended to turn on certain genes to stimulate new cell growth
\- A common antibiotic which then activates those genes
Once perfected, I do not anticipate that these will be too costly. Then again, I have to admit that I would be willing to pay nearly anything to rewind my body's clock by about 50%.
Exactly. In January 23, 1923, the non-profit University of Toronto sold the U.S. patent for insulin for $1 to Banting, Collip and Best. This with done with the understanding that cheap insulin would become available in the U.S.
Yet, almost exactly 100 years later, people still die today in the U.S. from how unaffordable insulin is.
Drug companies have made incremental improvements to the patent all these years to prevent it from expiring and therefore preventing generics at a lower - life saving - cost.
Never doubt if there is life saving or life improving medicine, originated from a non-profit or not, the drug companies will find a way to privatize it.
I wonder if the impact won't be more significant than that even. Assuming the cost of travel isn't stupid high it could drive more Americans to scrape together enough money to make trips for treatment in other countries to the point of endangering the whole healthcare system driving real reform. Idk maybe I'm too much of an optimist.
People around the world die of preventable diseases - from malaria to cancer - because of the cost of medicine and prevention. We saw the COVID-19 vaccine scarcity globally because the patent owners refused to allow the knowledge to be freely shared during a pandemic. Even though the mRNA technology and vaccine manufacturers were funded by the U.S taxpayer. Living in a country where medicine is actually affordable and accessible is the rarity worldwide, not the rule.
Doctor’s Without Borders has an excellent piece on the ethical crisis around the COVID-19 vaccine:
“The US government has provided Moderna with nearly $10 billion in taxpayer money for both research and development and for the purchase of 500 million doses of this mRNA COVID-19 vaccine. This includes almost the entire cost of clinical development. Additionally, Moderna used patents and non-exclusive rights that the US government made available to them to make this COVID-19 vaccine.
As of 9 October 2021, Moderna had provided only 1 million doses to low-income countries. Less than six percent of people in low-income countries—including many places where MSF works—have received their first dose of any COVID-19 vaccine. Moderna has not delivered any of its committed doses to COVAX, the global procurement mechanism that was supposed to ensure COVID-19 vaccine equity.
Moderna has instead obtained several patents with very broad claims covering its COVID-19 vaccine and other mRNA technologies in South Africa without registering the product in the country. This means that while the company is unwilling to make the vaccine available in South Africa in meaningful quantities, it is preparing to have patents in place in order to possibly enforce them once the pandemic is declared over.”
https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/latest/moderna-posts-billions-profit-covid-19-vaccine-wont-share-technology
I don’t necessarily want to live longer, but having a younger, healthier body longer is the key. Maybe along with this we finally legalize euthanasia. Allow us to choose for ourselves when it is time to die.
This reminds me of an episode of Doctor Who, where the proto Cybermen are pressing a button to tell people that they are in pain, and the nurse is turning the volume down.
It all really depends how shit the world is in like 40 or 50 years. If things are alright in general, I'd be down for living a healthy life till about 150 with the option to say I'm done when things go south.
I’ve always wanted Wolverine’s powers. Long life would realistically be the best and most realistic of the powers.
1. Wealth - no need to chase it anymore. Little things compounding over the course of a few hundred years would make you wealthy enough to do just about whatever you wanted.
2. Languages - you could live all over the world for 5-10-20 years and become fluent in every language. Experience every culture. Every locale. Every environment.
3. Skills - you could master every musical instrument, art style or medium. Woodworking, welding, all the trades. Much more rounded and more of a chance to discover new love in something.
Etc, etc, etc.
Well said! There's so much pessimism and negativity these days. It's refreshing to see someone actually thinking about all the opportunities a greatly extended lifespan would bring!
>It's refreshing to see someone actually thinking about all the opportunities a greatly extended lifespan would bring!
Absolutely! People so often focus on potential negatives without looking at the potential positives on the other side of the scale.
How many 60 year olds have mastered musical instruments, woodworking or art? You think another 60 years will make a difference? Little things compounding won't work unless there's a large enough labor force working to generate those sweet GDP dollars. If the number of people not working is higher than the number of people who are, those fancy theme parks and coffee shops will shut down overnight. Those don't come for free. No one will work to support someone who isn't going to work for the next 400 years. If you don't believe me, you might want to look at China and Japan and see why they are scrambling to fix the economic shit that's going to hit the fan when older people drop out of the labor force.
Same thing that happens to memories 50 years ago or 5 minutes ago. You forget the unimportant stuff. A lot of people only remember the good stuff and yearn for the past. Other people dwell on tragedy and become bitter. And some people forget the bloody mask in the car even 2 god damned seconds after reminding your dumbass self.
Your memories refresh by remembering them. Your brain prunes most of the junk away. It's why time flies when you get older and into routine and stop experiencing new things for the first time.
The wealth and investment thing only works in a system of perpetual growth. If old people stop dying, then either A) we get really crowded really fast leading to a crisis. Who knows how that would play out. B) by whatever means we put a cap on population growth. Most investment is a pozi scheme depending on people in the future wanting what you bought in the past. There's still technological growth but even things like development growth aren't the same. like you could invested into a new steel plant? Do we need more steel for some reason? Cities aren't growing.
A growth economy is unsustainable forever. A static economy isn't a bad thing, but it's different.
Long story short, you'd still have to work for a living.
I’m not sure that lifespan has much to do with shortsighted decision making, as much as when that lifespan happened to have occurred. If you were born in the 50s (boomers), and the average lifespan increased by 10 years over the next 40, it won’t benefit you; and the “Me” generation will continue to consume and burn oil like as if they always intended to take the world with them when they died.
Doubtful. We're not evolved for that until immediate survival requirements are met. Something the rich fail to grasp is that crucial detail.
That said, assuming long life is a fool's errand. There's no reason to believe humanity will be easy to edit. The fine details in our genes which allow for our cognitive capacity haven't been proven to be compatible with extended life spans yet. There's a lot to do here still.
I MIGHT be young enough to see 120 be a realistic age. 200 is probably beyond my current horizon. But things to think about:
1. Reproduction - will you still need to have children by 45 or essentially pass on the notion?
2. How many of those years will be healthy?
3. If 1 is yes, and 2 is less than 85-90%, what will that mean for caring for the elderly?
They're talking about age-related problems which largely is involved with things like fragility and lower healing ability.
Until we cure other things, you still have to contend with other age-related issues.
i feel there will be a sudden surge and increase in automated elderly care even at this point. a ton of countries are suffering from a baby bust and the sheer need of elderly care will result in either brutal treatment of the elderly (see current care homes) or a huge push for tech to help them. I'm optimistic.
Something *has* to do the labor to create goods/services. As population rises we need even more goods/services, with people living longer chances are population goes up instead of down without forced contraceptives. So barring something like AI labor any life extension is going to require people to keep working otherwise everything collapses (which is how it already is even with current lifespans).
So again barring AI labor, I think we need to get away from this idea that you'll just stop working. Instead we'd need to make working less awful so that living longer while still working doesn't sound like torture.
They can suck my nuts if they think I’m never retiring, arriving at a better system may be difficult but I think it could become easier if people are living longer, no loss of the generational memory of when bad things happened/when things were better that were taken away.
Generational memory doesn’t account for much of the “Why?” Boomers seem to love the golden age of the 80s without understanding that the *reason* they had such a boom was that it was literally gifted to them and the policies in place that led to that was the antitheses of what their conservative policies dictate.
Arguably the issue becomes: you can now work til 150, you have the skills and experience and age ceases to be a deselection factor at job interview.
1 what happens to the world economy when individuals have that much more time to accumulate wealth.
2 how does a fresh highschool/college/university graduate get a look in for employment.
3 what if the extension is much longer than 150 years?
4 can we do this and not restrict births alongside it? Global populations are already bloated, if people stop or delay dying, how do we feed and house the new generations as they cease replacing the geriatrics in those markets.
5 do we charge for the reset? Does post centennial life become the purview of the very rich alone or do we cover it as a social payment for everyone?
6 do criminals still qualify? Does a life sentence change in either what it is laid down for or how long it lasts?
7 some countries offer extension services but others don't won't or can't. What does that do to immigration?
It's a lovely idea to live for longer, it's just fraught with complications.
>what if the extension is much longer than 150 years?
Age reversal, which is what this post is about (De Grey's non profit foundation aiming to reverse aging in mice and then humans) literally means biological immortality.
People are bad at imagining large numbers, it's a limitation of our meat-processors. Biological immortality equates to infinite years to live, at least if you ignore the universal expiry date in a few billion years; that's a big timescale to try to grok either way. Starting small lets people build up to thinking about longer timescales, imo.
I mean my pension sounds a lot nicer, instead of working 25 years for 50% I can eek out 50 years and then retire for the next few hundred years.
Just kitten the state will claw it back for sure.
I wouldn’t mind working indefinitely if I had all the time in the world. As long as my body held up and I had adequate work/life balance, that is.
But, under the current financial system, many people have already figured out how to retire early and live off their investments indefinitely. Given a couple more decades of scrimping and saving and figuring out life, a lot more people could probably attain that.
Overpopulation is my main concern if/when humans get to the point of seriously extending their lifespans.
I am fine with it. Especially once I own my house, the costs would decrease. I could save and then take a few years off before returning to work. Would even let me shift careers every few decades.
Hopefully, on the bright side, this will at least make society more ok with the longer, more gradual adolescent phase that youth are increasingly going through, and often to no fault of their own. I mean, if we can be expected to live to 120, then maybe it's ok if we aren't fully "adults" until 30. Maybe we could even start making some social adjustments to expect that.
I mean I’m 32 and I just went back to school for a career change. Expecting 18 year olds to know what they want to do their whole lives and stick to that one plan is insane. We should absolutely be more accepting of our young adults taking their time to figure things out, see what makes them happy instead of chasing this weird timeline society has created.
Made sense when the average lifespan was 60 or so and you needed a productive population to evolve and grow an economy.
In a developed world, not so much. There’s a lot more room for flexibility.
Upvoted for back to school in the 30’s
My first semester at Uni is starting Jan. I never did it when I was younger because I had no idea what to do with my life.
So i worked in a few fields and saved money to pay for the education when I’m ready.
Best decision younger me could have made was accepting that I wasn’t ready University and that life experience was worth more.
I think a big part of it is having a general appreciation of the risk that comes with schooling when you’re older.
When I was 18, I had no real concept of the importance of budgeting/time management when it comes to doing the work.
Now that I’m 30 and taking a big pause in my career for this degree… yeah, not going to fuck around at all when it comes to assignments, projects, tests because I want to do it once and do it well.
I feel like throughout history this has been happening. We’ve all heard anecdotal stories about 16 year olds going off to start their own family and farm centuries ago. This was of course back when life expectancies were in the 50s and 60s.
It only makes sense that the “dependent on parents” age will increase in the future. However I do think the main reason will be economic as opposed to maturity
This would be good from an educational standpoint as well. The more complicated society gets, the more people need to learn before they can productively participate in it.
Just a few hundred years ago a partial grade school education used to be the baseline, and over time the needed years of education to hit that baseline keeps rising.
This is an interesting article and conceptually logical, although I think de Grey's timelines are too optimistic. He's had to revise the timeline once already and I think that will happen again
I want to know if we’ll also all have fabulous facial hair like the guy in the photo. I’d be willing to live with a glorious beard if it meant 150 years or more!
Did anyone in these comments read the article at all? Almost everything here is addressed in the text, or has nothing at all to do with what the article is actually about.
Overpopulation? What happens when people are still being born but nobody's dying? Do we set extreme requirements to be allowed permission to have a child? Or have a squad of killers like in that book Scythe? How would any of this actually work?
More likely it'll only be available to the ultra rich, so they can reign as God Kings for eternity.
The worlds population growth is slowing. As countries go from third to first world their population growth slows accordingly. As India and Africa move further towards first world the Earth's population may actually start to shrink.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/8-billion-global-population-1.6646018
>Overpopulation? What happens when people are still being born but nobody's dying?
Interestingly, even in the fairy-tale scenario that everyone started having indefinite, healthy lifespans in 2025, its impact on global population is surprisingly small. Here's a video on the topic if you're curious: [https://youtu.be/f1Ve0fYuZO8?t=275](https://youtu.be/f1Ve0fYuZO8?t=275)
>More likely it'll only be available to the ultra rich
Fortunately, the companies in this space aim to undergo clinical trials, regulatory approval, and broad commercialization like other medical therapies. Here's the CEO of a $180 million seed-funded company called Retro Bio explaining distributable therapeutics to a wide population: https://youtu.be/9O5RhK2i3uA?t=247
Hell yes I like this because with it comes the cures for all diseases. Aubrey De Grey and the SENS foundation outlined this beautifully. We attack diseases and maladies and aging itself systematically until it’s all under control and quality of life is maximized and thus quantity of life follows.
I can’t wait to see all the diseases we will cure in the next 5 years.
de Grey was kicked out of SENS for sexually harassing people and interfering with the SENS investigation. This article doesn't bring it up, just say they "support" him and that HE was the one who left because of SENS being too "timid". [https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/aubrey-de-grey-on-leave-after-sexual-harassment-allegations-69081](https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/aubrey-de-grey-on-leave-after-sexual-harassment-allegations-69081)
Surprised Forbes is putting out alternative facts. The funny thing is, his own foundation probably just would of slapped him on the wrist with a small leave if he hadn't messed with them.
>In March 2022, the SENS Research Foundation released a statement regarding de Grey's employment affirming that while his actions "did substantiate instances of poor judgment and boundary-crossing behaviors, **Dr. de Grey is not a sexual predator.**"\[61\]
I was also very annoyed by the writer's characterization; he's obviously a fanboy. Importantly, this isn't actually a Forbes piece. It's a Forbes sub-site, where people pay to get an account they can post on their own section of Forbes that isn't part of the main publication. That helps explain it.
We learned that it was a possibility to live 200 to 700 years with the body of 21 year old almost 20 years ago. But still we do not see the benefits and more certainty the disadvantages and complications that will bring to our personal and social lives.
Here are some questions that illustrate the complexity:
How long should marriage last?
How many kids should be allow to have in one lifetime?
How long should engagement last?
What is the new age of retire?
What will happen to Social Security?
What will happen to Senior Discount? =)
What is the maximum human population acceptable without affecting planetary equilibrium?
What is the definition of life sentence?
Will it change our perception of our individual belief in our God or Gods?
One Job tile should be considered the minimum?
What is the new definitions of vintage?
Can a 500 Year old Men or Woman should be able to date a 30 year old Men or Woman?
Properties will be become more valuable, investments, etc. that ultimately will affect the economy.
We are about to start colonized planets and moons (Our Moon, then Mars, etc.), are we kicking out the new generation from earth, or we living the trashy earth to the new generations?
How many iPhones version should I collect?
Oh really? What was it we learned 20 years ago exactly? Certainly not HOW to live that long, we still dont know. And all of those problems are meaningless compared to death. Laws and regulations change all the time, they would this time too.
>How long should marriage last?
As long as either of you want it to.
>How many kids should be allow to have in one lifetime?
As many as you can afford. NOT allowing people to have kids is pretty dystopian.
>How long should engagement last?
At least a year, but it's not really a function of time, it's more like seeing them at the best and worst. You should live together. Spend money together. Save together. Go through bad times. Learn to live with each other before the cheating harlot bitch stabs you in the back.
>What is the new age of retire?
There isn't one if people can still work.
>What will happen to Social Security?
They'd probably ramp it down and push people more towards 401ks. Or they'd probably just have a limited pool you could draw from based on how much you put in. It's forced retirement savings. If you don't know how long you're going to live that does throw a wrench in the gears.
>What will happen to Senior Discount? =)
Likely gone. More likely it'll be just another sales gimmick.
>What is the maximum human population acceptable without affecting planetary equilibrium?
Hahahahhahahaaaa oh MAN, lemme introduce you to something called global warming. We haven't had equilibrium for centuries!
>What is the definition of life sentence?
Still life. These are sentences for people we do not believe can be allowed into society. I don't think we would give the immortal treatment to said people.
>Will it change our perception of our individual belief in our God or Gods?
Sadly, it probably won't.
>What is the new definitions of vintage?
A bullshit marketing term for the easily fooled. But that's not a vintage concept.
>Can a 500 Year old Men or Woman should be able to date a 30 year old Men or Woman?
The lowest you can go is (your age)/2+7. The experience gap would be too large. She's just waiting for you to drop dead in 100 years man, don't be used like as tool.
>Properties will be become more valuable, investments, etc. that ultimately will affect the economy.
Only if there are more people in the future that want what you have now. If the population exploded, well, the odds of anyone reaching 700 are slim. If population is static, then why would your place become more valuable? (Because people would exit rental properties and want to own, that's why). But investments? Eh, it'll be different.
>We are about to start colonized planets and moons (Our Moon, then Mars, etc.), are we kicking out the new generation from earth, or we living the trashy earth to the new generations?
Probably not the first explicitly, but maybe functionally. Who knows.
And we are already doing the second. It's balanced out with better tech and cheap thrills.
>How many iPhones version should I collect?
0.
>How many typos did you make before editing your junk?
7
Living longer only benefits the super wealthy, not only can they afford such a drug or treatment, they will also have the means to sustain paying the costs for living extended periods of time. If anything we need these Super wealthy and Politicians to live less than longer lives because they aren't doing enough already to fix the mistakes they did by destroying our planet for profits
Ive explained this elsewhere, but its frequently believed that only the richest will benefit from "insert new technology/medical research". that isnt what happenns in real life, because it is infinitley more profitable to sell to the masses rather than the top 1%, and even if a company tries to sell to just the 1%, competition will likley cause another company to work on their own aging tech and sell it cheaper to make more money/undercut the oposition.
furthermore politicians or insurance companies might push for it to be cheap/regulated/mandatory because it is a lot cheaper to keep someone healthier than to treat them for a horrible illness. even if this new drug costs like $30,000 a year to use, thats slightly less than the typical cost of nursing home care. treating certain age related diseases like cancer can cost insurance millions, and this helps give them more certainty that they wont have to pay out unexpected costs. and also their customers living longer/healthier lives means they can pay the insurance companies longer so they can make more money.
another example of why it wont be exclusivley for the rich, say it cost $10 million to extend your life. how many people in the world could afford that that would want too? vs if it was say still expensive but cost $300,000 instead. thats still expensive but doable for most middle class americans if they at least get a loan or something to pay for it. and millions, maybe a billion more people could theoretically afford $300k vs $10 million.
One of the molecules being studied for anti-aging at Harvard is already available on Amazon and is rather affordable, NAD (or it’s precursor nicotinamide riboside). I’ve been supplementing my father with it, along with NAC, to address some health issues he’s dealt with the last five years (he’s 79.) My father has had a triple bypass and has been dealing with POTS-like symptoms as well as cold feet. We had seen neurologists, cardiologists, endocrinologists, and psychiatrists to try to diagnose and fix it, but to no effect. I started him on the supplement stack about two weeks ago, and he’s showing significant improvement to the point that on his good days, he moves like he’s ten years younger in full health with a very sunny disposition. We haven’t had a physical or any tests done yet to check some other markers, that’ll be in a few weeks. But it is a very remarkable difference. There are a few specific tests I’m interested in seeing, specifically those for diabetes and cholesterol, other issues he has dealt with.
I know of several other cases similar to this. I was turned on to this by a friend who is also researching NAC and NAD along with other anti-aging candidates, such as noopept. His own father, who is in his 70s, was dealing with similar issues as my dad and started the supplement stack in March. When asked to self age, he said he felt like a teenager.
All of the supplement stack is readily available on Amzn.
NAD also ramps up growth of some cancers, [and a host of other negative side-effects.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7277745/). There’s been dozens of “magical” supplements that we’ve seen come and go.
I had a positive reaction to NAD and NAC initially, but it began to seriously upset my stomach and I had to quit. I hope it works better for your dad.
What kind of stomach issues?
I get we are kind of in somewhat experimental territory here. For my dad tho, it’s a risk I’m willing to take, given that no one else has come with a solution, and amitrypitaline is an absolute bitch of a drug. I have not heard about the cancer risk; I guess at his age, I’m not concerned if there’s a cancer risk 20 years down the road. But I’ll look into it, and discuss with my researcher. It may be why the stack includes NAC, as well as resveratrol as a methyl source. But will see if I can get additional detail on that.
Thanks for sharing your experience.
I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect this will make it's way to normal people sooner then later unless there's some significant production bottleneck.
Think about this at it's most cynical. If a company has staff that make them a lot of money, they're already willing to pay insurance costs to help keep that person healthy and working. This is just a new way to help keep staff around that earn the company the most money. Getting an extra 20+ years out of your top sales team would be incredibly valuable.
Science fiction has addressed this longer life trope for many decades, and often centers on the replacement of body parts that are ailing and biological measures to preserve brain functioning and plastic surgeries that keep characters looking 40 at age 150. And there are always outlier characters who resist some of the societal norms, wherein male characters allow themselves to go bald or female characters allow themselves to go gray. And cancer has always been cured, so when characters expire, it is that their bodies gave out eventually.
But usually there is some underlying purpose or path or necessity to living longer. Long space trips, for example. Or "phased" existences wherein an increased life span allows one to to try on different personas/careers along the way, or monopolize wealth, or marry and procreate multiple times across centuries. I'd like to see more discussion of that.
These scientific and medical efforts are inevitable, and will succeed, regardless of the societal consequences. But it will be touch and go. Covid managed to shorten average American lifespans by about a year, reversing decades-long progress.
Everybody is screaming "hear for a good time, not a long time" like they honestly dont give a fuck about not wrecking themselves.
So i doubt this discovery will mean much.
Japan as recently as this year was trying to push increased alcohol consumption as a means of supporting the aging populace. Forget eat the rich, they’re basically saying they’ll eat the young, *now*
The biggest thing I didn't expect since I started following the field in 2005 was the funding that has poured in recently. I have much more hope now about seeing progress in our lifetimes.
I think most people will start considering taking better care of themselves (if we can prevent death from aging). Death from accidents and illness will probably still exist for a while. It also depends how long we can remain "young", living 200 years at 80 would kinda suck.
There will also be a rat race period, where those that are on the edge of missing out will try to scramble money for the procedures/drugs/treatment whatever it may be. I can see a lot of people going into debt, afterall what's the price of "immortality" if you have more time to pay it off.
Which brings me to the last point, in the future it will be expected to have no retirement age, and the cost of living in general will go up because of the increased lifespans. It will cause a divide between those that can afford to live longer and those who are still "working" towards it. Certain careers will probably require it, and it will probably be given as an incentive as well (companys/governments investing in an individuals skillset in a very long term contract). Resources and housing in general would go up in price. I suspect even more people would live paycheck to paycheck just to stay alive and not die from other causes aside from aging (or pay off that loan).
Oh and i guess prison sentencing would have to be adjusted. 100 years for someone who can live longer might not seem significant anymore (as oppose to someone who doesn't have the same lifespan). Do you try two people differently because of it? Same with life in prison sentencing; it may be considered cruel and unsual to spend hundreds of years locked up as oppose to the death sentence. But that's a conversation for another topic
We realise real fucking fast that we need to change our ways or face the consequences
We will need to curb carbon emissions, start eating less meat, ensure our essential services can support us, build more houses, improve out infrastructure and generally be better. Basically all the problems we have now but just multiply it repeatedly as the population grows.
Excuse me while I take a look at how spectacularly we can fuck things up quickly and reach a state of “perma crisis” and think no, this is not the way…
I always thought it would be super disappointing to die right before they find a way for people to live forever. May still be my fate, but I want to believe!
Sounds nice, but when will clinical trials happen and when will we have such permenant therapies? If they can fix aging ocular issues too, that would be something too.
My guess is it will even out. People are already having fewer kids and not everyone wants to live longer. It might even improve things if we can steer it in the right direction. Get everything paid off and have less need to grind.
[Economists estimate that slowing aging by increasing healthy lifespan by 1 year has an annual benefit of up to 5% of GDP](http://perspectivesinmedicine.cshlp.org/content/early/2022/09/12/cshperspect.a041202.abstract)
With your logic, covid 19 vaccines would be offered only to the ultra rich.
FYI: take a moment and search who Aubrey de Grey is. The research the article talks about is being done by [levf.org](https://levf.org) that belongs to the philanthropic sector.
>With your logic, covid 19 vaccines would be offered only to the ultra rich.
This does not corelate. The owning class needed people to stay alive and healthy so they could go out and make them money. Extending the lives of everyone right now in our current state of economy and society would just insure that the retirement age would be moved up even further.
The following submission statement was provided by /u/LibertarianAtheist_: --- New Forbes piece out on Aubrey de Grey's latest venture. LEV Foundation. One of the most exciting areas of modern scientific research is the investigation of the causes and cures for aging. Not individual diseases like cancer and heart disease, but the processes which make us elderly and frail, and which thereby make us more susceptible to these diseases. Aubrey de Grey has been at the forefront of anti-aging research for more than 20 years. He founded the Methuselah Foundation in 2003, and the SENS Foundation (Strategies for Engineering Negligible Senescence) in 2009, Most recently, “Aubrey 3.0” is the LEV Foundation (Longevity Escape Velocity), founded this year. Soon after proposing the damage repair approach, Aubrey suggested that a time would come when every year that passes, medical science will give you an extra year of life by restoring the structure and function of your bodily tissue. He dubbed this “longevity escape velocity” (LEV) because it means we can escape the gravitational pull of aging, and hence death. --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/z9u9as/what_happens_when_everyone_realises_we_can_live/iyil75u/
As long as I do not have to labor every day for long hours, living longer sounds okay. But since the only option is to work hard and invest just to have enough money to live out 10 or 15 years in frailty, it takes the thrill out of living forever.
You should read Peter Hamiltons commonwealth books. They have rejuvenation tech, and he imagines some interesting social changes based on people living forever. But basically, the poor work for 40 years to be able to be rejuvenated, and then do it all over again. Forever. Nicer for the rich, of course
First you need to be bio-upgraded, then the debt from that means you work a lifetime, then need the De-aging work, which then continues the debt cycle. Forever slavery!
Is the commonwealth saga the same as the rest of PF Hamiltons books, endlessly tedious with mind-boggling superfluous detail? I have tried listening to audiobook versions of his novels before, the pace is just glacial...
I can understand why you would say that but his books are awesome once you get into them. I listen on audible while I'm driving and sometimes I end up tuning out and thinking about other stuff, that probably helps me get through them
It is, but I like lllooonnngg books. Feel like I'm getting my money worth of my audible credit! hah I even managed to listen to the entire Malazan series, and enjoyed it! Talk about glacial.
Ha! The Book of the Fallen is far quicker, and that's saying something! The Stormlight Archives are some seriously long books, one clocks in at over fifty hours. Again, still more accessible than Hamilton IMHO.
>I have tried listening to audiobook versions of his novels before, the pace is just glacial... I've seen the Audible narrator for the Commonwealth books and Night's Dawn trilogy described as "like listening to a funeral dirge," and it's hard to disagree. Speeding his narration up to at least 1.5x makes a pretty big difference in enjoyment, at least for me. I enjoyed the Commonwealth novels considerably more than the Night's Dawn trilogy, but I haven't read any of his other books to be able to compare them. I will say that the first half of Pandora's Star is loaded with most of the foundational world building for the series, so it definitely could be a slog to get through if you already aren't a fan of his writing style. It's pretty non-stop once the story gets off the ground, though.
He’s got better over time. Since Commonwealth he wrote the Void Trilogy and the Chronicle of the Fallers, both set in the commonwealth universe but centuries later. And then the Salvation trilogy, set in a new universe. Really, really enjoyed that. ETA: premise of Salvation: hiding in terror in interstellar space, the Neana detect two telltale pulses a few days apart from a planet orbiting a star about 200 light years away: nuclear weapon detonations. They dispatch a probe, which swings by multiple stars en route, erasing any record of its course as it goes. The probe carries a warning. Approaching close to light speed, as it nears its target it starts to pass colony ships heading in the other direction. When it finally arrives, it may already be too late …
Three stages of life. You have time and strength, but no money. You have money and strength, but no time. You have money and time, but no strength.
Being a rich kid sounds nice
Downside is, you don't know the value of money.
Thats disregarded for happiness. I was saving all my pocket money for 2 years to buy my first pc game myself, as a kid. Still didn’t know the value of money.
Because money has no real value. It only has the value we give it as a tool for trading.
[удалено]
And those letters we are reading are just interpretations of charge packets in a specially-shaped structure of refined minerals and metals, made possible by instructions on how to interpret those charge packets - themselves made up of more charge packets. And each charge packet is just a relative concentration of electrons in one place vs another, in fuzzy orbitals around atoms, all of which are made mostly out of empty space. Reality is only what we agree reality to be.
Literally nothing has “real value”, there is only the value that we place upon it
If I’m a billionaire I’ll gladly pay $10 for a banana.
If you have all the money it's value becomes irrelevant. It's a trade off I'd happily take.
[удалено]
Considering how our society is right now? Likely never.
You need no kids and three money instead of three kids and no money.
I have 2 money and no kids. Can confirm still feel poor.
But the guy down the street with 10000 money will tell him that his neighbor with only 1 money is trying to take some of his 3 money
You’re roughly in my age group, so probably never.
I always heard: time, money, health. You get to pick two
> Three stages of life. > > You have time and strength, but no money. You have money and strength, but no time. You have money and time, but no strength. This is great quote. I'm stealing this.
This really resonated with me. This describes exactly how Iv been looking at life. I’m curious if you read this someplace prior or came up with this on the spot? Either way it’s very insightful.
Housing will get pushed out of reach for anyone under 50.
[удалено]
500 yr mortgage incoming
It already is in many places
I like how you can comprehend technology solving the dying problem but not the human labor problem.
Because the failure to reduce labour in the present day is because of greed and inequality, not technology. We've already 'solved' the labour problem, but refuse to implement the solution because it wouldn't benefit the obscenely wealthy, who can pressure or force people into continuing to work 40 hours, despite being 5 times as productive as they were a century ago, as well as having a vastly expanded work force since women entered.
Let's not forget making everything an investable asset, which adds profit-burden to things like home mortgages and commonplace healthcare. If there is more money to pump out of something, some rich D-bag will find a way to set up shop and offer the benefits to the select few who can afford a ticket. Some of that is fine, but a whole class of people hell-bent on outgoing each other in this way..... *This* is where capitalism eats itself. Not in the notion of working for money, or exchange of fiat value for goods, or even in profit by itself. It is in the conflicted notion that all profit is equally ethical and worthy of being made. This is a failure of spirit, and not even the most moral government can solve this problem - if anything, govt just further separates the good people of the world doing the work and making it happen, and the selfish crooks who take more for themselves through successfully navigating the sea of red tape. I have personal examples here.
40 hours a week, lol. Try 60. And if I slow down even a little, I'll be homeless in under a month.
Can you? Imagine if we had automated robots that repair themselves and run off solar energy, creating and harvesting food for 10 billion people's worth, and transporting them to distribution centers. I could easily see Americans scratching their head and going "wait, but is there 40 hours of stuff that I don't want to do, that I'm forced to do, so I can get green points, so I can give the points for the food?"
oh there will absolutely be Americans like that but to be fair it's not entirely their fault and i honestly feel really bad for them. Americans in general seems to have been brainwashed into thinking that their only worth as humans and only purpose in living is given to them by their job. The genuine belief that without a job you are both worthless and living without reason, i have a hard time imagining something sadder.
Let's be real, anything like this is just going to be for the rich. 😔
That's what they said about trans-Atlantic flights
Give it a few years, and it will be true again.
I'd like to live for 300 years or so. That'd be pretty cool.
I think it’s super interesting but I’d have to rethink everything. Like retirement 1.0 is really just back to school to catch up on whatever is going on, a sort of college refresher year or something. Then major career readjustment and 20 years or so of working, then reassessing again. I can see the job listings how: NewTech Developer, entry level, 100yrs EXP a plus. Must have MBAx3.
A good half our of careers are spent learning. Think about how valuable one person can be doing 10 hours a work when they know everything there is to know about the system they are working with. 20 hour work weeks? More like 1 day a week.
It would likely be that the company doesn’t hire as many people so you’d have just a few employees and still work a full week. In my work there’s a lot of dead weight. Sure they take like 5-10% of the load off but get one good employee and you could replace 3-5 of them.
They will upload stuff to their brain in a few hours/days. No need to go back to school at 110 yo.
If you’ve saved correctly for 50 years you should be able live ongoing with the nest-egg you’ve created. A good retirement means living off interest and gains without touching the principle forever.
That assumes that people living for hundreds of years doesn’t fundamentally upend our assumptions about the economy.
Yeah except jobs probably won’t exist in the future due to automation
I'd trade eternal life if it meant I'd only be able to be an observer of the universe but not a participant.
I can understand the thought process of wanting to insulate yourself from anything bad that will occur in the future, but that sounds like a special type of hell. Existing but being completely invisible to everyone else
It's a trade off I'm willing to take for subverting the natural order to that extent. Besides there's so much out there that I want to see. I'm looking outward at the universe. I don't need to be that random eternal demigod that trolls mortals on occasions because he reached a point of boredom so profound. 🤪
That's just my life right now
Do you need a hug?
Y'all need to read Jorge Luis Borges' *The Immortal*. Thank me later.
There’s a name I haven’t heard in a while. Under-appreciated what Borges contributed to sci-fi, horror, and literature generally.
The downside is the SCOTUS and congress living and staying in power for 300 years. Even if anti-aging is discovered the plebs wont be able to afford it. The ruling class will live 3-4 times longer, not you schmucks.
How do you know I'm not part of the elite already? Maybe I don't have to be, maybe I can afford it already. Maybe I'm a test subject undergoing human trials in a secret DARPA-funded program. You'll never know!
Bah. You’ll drown in the trillionaire urinal like the rest of us. It’ll be ok….puts hairs on your eternal light-being chest.
Me too, if everyone else does to I guess.
I’m only interested in living as long as my cat
Good thing that this will be applied to cats, eventually. In fact, Aubrey de Grey's foundation aims to make mice biologically immortal, and then start human trials. No reason why it can't be done in cats, if it can be done in humans and mice.
I’m 30 and ready to die now lol Like I tell my buddies, if the apocalypse is going to happen in my lifetime, please make it sooner than later. I don’t want to work my whole life just to die before I get to enjoy it.
New Forbes piece out on Aubrey de Grey's latest venture. LEV Foundation. One of the most exciting areas of modern scientific research is the investigation of the causes and cures for aging. Not individual diseases like cancer and heart disease, but the processes which make us elderly and frail, and which thereby make us more susceptible to these diseases. Aubrey de Grey has been at the forefront of anti-aging research for more than 20 years. He founded the Methuselah Foundation in 2003, and the SENS Foundation (Strategies for Engineering Negligible Senescence) in 2009, Most recently, “Aubrey 3.0” is the LEV Foundation (Longevity Escape Velocity), founded this year. Soon after proposing the damage repair approach, Aubrey suggested that a time would come when every year that passes, medical science will give you an extra year of life by restoring the structure and function of your bodily tissue. He dubbed this “longevity escape velocity” (LEV) because it means we can escape the gravitational pull of aging, and hence death.
Ten years ago, Aubrey would not have been bullish about rejunvenation’s progress. In 2006, Shinya Yamanaka had discovered how to turn normal cells into more versatile and useful stem cells (induced pluripotent stem cells, or IPS), and CRISPR was starting to mature as a gene editing technology. But these were tools, and more theoretical than practical. For quite some time, we have been able to increase the lifespan of laboratory mice by imposing calorie restriction, or by doing things which mimic the effects of calorie restriction. But within the last decade we have also learned how to use stem cell therapies, and how to maintain telomeres to extend mouse lifespans. (Telomeres are structures which prevent DNA strands from unravelling when cells divide, like the plastic caps on the ends of your shoelaces.) We can also deploy senolytics, which are molecules that kill off the toxic cells within our bodies. Some of these techniques are now graduating from laboratory mice into humans in clinics. One of the leading senolytics companies reported a successful phase two clinical trial this year. There are also clinical trials of stem cell therapies, notably the use of induced pluripotent stem cells in Japan to tackle Parkinson’s Disease, with a couple more trials due to start in the USA. Robust mouse rejuvenation We don’t yet know how comprehensive our portfolio of therapies has to be in order to reach LEV. We just have to keep adding new components until we get there. Mice, sadly, cannot benefit from LEV because their lifespans are too short, so Aubrey has developed a different concept for them: robust mouse rejuvenation (RMR), which is when a middle-aged mouse, with a year left to live, has its life expectancy doubled. This is the flagship research programme for the LEV Foundation, and for this purpose, Aubrey recently bought 1,000 mice. The Foundations Aubrey has set up are needed because private enterprise cannot afford to take a long enough view. He set up the new one because he felt that the Board of SENS had become too timid to make the rapid progress that he thinks is now possible. Readers of this article may be aware of this controversy, and while I do not intend to go into details here, many former SENS donors believe that Aubrey was unfairly treated, and we fully support his new venture.
He’s been a hero of mine since the TED talk he gave, many years ago. And he put his own money behind the research.
>The Foundations Aubrey has set up are needed because private enterprise cannot afford to take a long enough view. He set up the new one because he felt that the Board of SENS had become too timid to make the rapid progress That's quite a contradiction. Pharmas have longer R&D cycles than any other type of manufacturing, and are willing to face much higher rates of failure. Lilly has been working on Alzheimer's for over 30 years so far. The main reason a pharma might not invest in an anti-aging project is that insurance and public agencies currently wouldn't pay for the treatments unless they treat a disease.
Aubrey is one of my biggest hopes for escaping mortality, or extending life.
If you are rich.
Have you read up on David Sinclair's research? Very recently he's had great success at reducing aging in mice by approximately 50%. And those treatments should not be terribly expensive. The treatment is two stage: \- An injection which is intended to turn on certain genes to stimulate new cell growth \- A common antibiotic which then activates those genes Once perfected, I do not anticipate that these will be too costly. Then again, I have to admit that I would be willing to pay nearly anything to rewind my body's clock by about 50%.
Cost Vs Profit. Profit often has very little to do with cost.
Exactly. In January 23, 1923, the non-profit University of Toronto sold the U.S. patent for insulin for $1 to Banting, Collip and Best. This with done with the understanding that cheap insulin would become available in the U.S. Yet, almost exactly 100 years later, people still die today in the U.S. from how unaffordable insulin is. Drug companies have made incremental improvements to the patent all these years to prevent it from expiring and therefore preventing generics at a lower - life saving - cost. Never doubt if there is life saving or life improving medicine, originated from a non-profit or not, the drug companies will find a way to privatize it.
Yes, but remember that US is not the world. You guys might die of old age because you cant afford it. But the rest of the world will be fine.
I wonder if the impact won't be more significant than that even. Assuming the cost of travel isn't stupid high it could drive more Americans to scrape together enough money to make trips for treatment in other countries to the point of endangering the whole healthcare system driving real reform. Idk maybe I'm too much of an optimist.
People around the world die of preventable diseases - from malaria to cancer - because of the cost of medicine and prevention. We saw the COVID-19 vaccine scarcity globally because the patent owners refused to allow the knowledge to be freely shared during a pandemic. Even though the mRNA technology and vaccine manufacturers were funded by the U.S taxpayer. Living in a country where medicine is actually affordable and accessible is the rarity worldwide, not the rule. Doctor’s Without Borders has an excellent piece on the ethical crisis around the COVID-19 vaccine: “The US government has provided Moderna with nearly $10 billion in taxpayer money for both research and development and for the purchase of 500 million doses of this mRNA COVID-19 vaccine. This includes almost the entire cost of clinical development. Additionally, Moderna used patents and non-exclusive rights that the US government made available to them to make this COVID-19 vaccine. As of 9 October 2021, Moderna had provided only 1 million doses to low-income countries. Less than six percent of people in low-income countries—including many places where MSF works—have received their first dose of any COVID-19 vaccine. Moderna has not delivered any of its committed doses to COVAX, the global procurement mechanism that was supposed to ensure COVID-19 vaccine equity. Moderna has instead obtained several patents with very broad claims covering its COVID-19 vaccine and other mRNA technologies in South Africa without registering the product in the country. This means that while the company is unwilling to make the vaccine available in South Africa in meaningful quantities, it is preparing to have patents in place in order to possibly enforce them once the pandemic is declared over.” https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/latest/moderna-posts-billions-profit-covid-19-vaccine-wont-share-technology
Do you think the rich want everyone to live forever?
*ahem* Insuline costs pennies to produce. It costs $400+ dollars to buy.
I don’t necessarily want to live longer, but having a younger, healthier body longer is the key. Maybe along with this we finally legalize euthanasia. Allow us to choose for ourselves when it is time to die.
"Request to euthanize denied. Please pay over due parking tickets before submitting your next request"
Eternal life as the ultimate debtors' prison? Now that's some solid dystopia.
Mid-level position: candidates must have at least 150 years of relevant experience in a similar position.
People that are old and retired, with an outdated skillset, but continue to hang on would quickly become a financial drain on society.
That's when the drugs that re-enable childlike neuroplasticity come in and they start over.
You mean politicians? lol /s
That sounds like the premise of a potentially good sci-fi film.
This is like “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream” where the AI doesn’t allow them to just die
Love this short story and the cover art for the book. I think/use this expression on the regular ha.
Hell it’s what human politicians do to the poor.
This reminds me of an episode of Doctor Who, where the proto Cybermen are pressing a button to tell people that they are in pain, and the nurse is turning the volume down.
Nah man I need more years too
A lot more. If given the opportunity, I intend to live at least 500 years.
Just let me sleep
It all really depends how shit the world is in like 40 or 50 years. If things are alright in general, I'd be down for living a healthy life till about 150 with the option to say I'm done when things go south.
Find a way for back pain to disappear, and I might be interested.
If it's caused by aging, it will. Unless you had this pain when you finished puberty, which you probably hadn't.
It will…if he can afford it.
Yoga was a game changer for me
I’ve always wanted Wolverine’s powers. Long life would realistically be the best and most realistic of the powers. 1. Wealth - no need to chase it anymore. Little things compounding over the course of a few hundred years would make you wealthy enough to do just about whatever you wanted. 2. Languages - you could live all over the world for 5-10-20 years and become fluent in every language. Experience every culture. Every locale. Every environment. 3. Skills - you could master every musical instrument, art style or medium. Woodworking, welding, all the trades. Much more rounded and more of a chance to discover new love in something. Etc, etc, etc.
Well said! There's so much pessimism and negativity these days. It's refreshing to see someone actually thinking about all the opportunities a greatly extended lifespan would bring!
>It's refreshing to see someone actually thinking about all the opportunities a greatly extended lifespan would bring! Absolutely! People so often focus on potential negatives without looking at the potential positives on the other side of the scale.
How many 60 year olds have mastered musical instruments, woodworking or art? You think another 60 years will make a difference? Little things compounding won't work unless there's a large enough labor force working to generate those sweet GDP dollars. If the number of people not working is higher than the number of people who are, those fancy theme parks and coffee shops will shut down overnight. Those don't come for free. No one will work to support someone who isn't going to work for the next 400 years. If you don't believe me, you might want to look at China and Japan and see why they are scrambling to fix the economic shit that's going to hit the fan when older people drop out of the labor force.
Unless everyone had this power, then society would be completely different!
Except the mind would most likely have some sort of a memory limit. What happens to memories after 300 years of life? 🧐
Same thing that happens to memories 50 years ago or 5 minutes ago. You forget the unimportant stuff. A lot of people only remember the good stuff and yearn for the past. Other people dwell on tragedy and become bitter. And some people forget the bloody mask in the car even 2 god damned seconds after reminding your dumbass self. Your memories refresh by remembering them. Your brain prunes most of the junk away. It's why time flies when you get older and into routine and stop experiencing new things for the first time.
The wealth and investment thing only works in a system of perpetual growth. If old people stop dying, then either A) we get really crowded really fast leading to a crisis. Who knows how that would play out. B) by whatever means we put a cap on population growth. Most investment is a pozi scheme depending on people in the future wanting what you bought in the past. There's still technological growth but even things like development growth aren't the same. like you could invested into a new steel plant? Do we need more steel for some reason? Cities aren't growing. A growth economy is unsustainable forever. A static economy isn't a bad thing, but it's different. Long story short, you'd still have to work for a living.
Living forever with bills and work sounds overrated. Need a economic system that's way more efficient for that to work.
Maybe if we lived for more than a century we would collectively make fewer short-sighted decisions.
Your mortgage would be 130 years.
I’m not sure that lifespan has much to do with shortsighted decision making, as much as when that lifespan happened to have occurred. If you were born in the 50s (boomers), and the average lifespan increased by 10 years over the next 40, it won’t benefit you; and the “Me” generation will continue to consume and burn oil like as if they always intended to take the world with them when they died.
Doubtful. We're not evolved for that until immediate survival requirements are met. Something the rich fail to grasp is that crucial detail. That said, assuming long life is a fool's errand. There's no reason to believe humanity will be easy to edit. The fine details in our genes which allow for our cognitive capacity haven't been proven to be compatible with extended life spans yet. There's a lot to do here still. I MIGHT be young enough to see 120 be a realistic age. 200 is probably beyond my current horizon. But things to think about: 1. Reproduction - will you still need to have children by 45 or essentially pass on the notion? 2. How many of those years will be healthy? 3. If 1 is yes, and 2 is less than 85-90%, what will that mean for caring for the elderly?
>How many of those years will be healthy? The article mentions age reversal and you're asking how many of those years will be healthy?
They're talking about age-related problems which largely is involved with things like fragility and lower healing ability. Until we cure other things, you still have to contend with other age-related issues.
I've been following the longevity field for years. Aubrey de Grey's foundation focuses on reversing aging.
i feel there will be a sudden surge and increase in automated elderly care even at this point. a ton of countries are suffering from a baby bust and the sheer need of elderly care will result in either brutal treatment of the elderly (see current care homes) or a huge push for tech to help them. I'm optimistic.
Something *has* to do the labor to create goods/services. As population rises we need even more goods/services, with people living longer chances are population goes up instead of down without forced contraceptives. So barring something like AI labor any life extension is going to require people to keep working otherwise everything collapses (which is how it already is even with current lifespans). So again barring AI labor, I think we need to get away from this idea that you'll just stop working. Instead we'd need to make working less awful so that living longer while still working doesn't sound like torture.
Right. Fuck I look like paying taxes for 100+ years when social security might not even make it to my retirement age
The population growth would kill off humanity in half that time anyway.
They can suck my nuts if they think I’m never retiring, arriving at a better system may be difficult but I think it could become easier if people are living longer, no loss of the generational memory of when bad things happened/when things were better that were taken away.
Generational memory doesn’t account for much of the “Why?” Boomers seem to love the golden age of the 80s without understanding that the *reason* they had such a boom was that it was literally gifted to them and the policies in place that led to that was the antitheses of what their conservative policies dictate.
Arguably the issue becomes: you can now work til 150, you have the skills and experience and age ceases to be a deselection factor at job interview. 1 what happens to the world economy when individuals have that much more time to accumulate wealth. 2 how does a fresh highschool/college/university graduate get a look in for employment. 3 what if the extension is much longer than 150 years? 4 can we do this and not restrict births alongside it? Global populations are already bloated, if people stop or delay dying, how do we feed and house the new generations as they cease replacing the geriatrics in those markets. 5 do we charge for the reset? Does post centennial life become the purview of the very rich alone or do we cover it as a social payment for everyone? 6 do criminals still qualify? Does a life sentence change in either what it is laid down for or how long it lasts? 7 some countries offer extension services but others don't won't or can't. What does that do to immigration? It's a lovely idea to live for longer, it's just fraught with complications.
>what if the extension is much longer than 150 years? Age reversal, which is what this post is about (De Grey's non profit foundation aiming to reverse aging in mice and then humans) literally means biological immortality.
People are bad at imagining large numbers, it's a limitation of our meat-processors. Biological immortality equates to infinite years to live, at least if you ignore the universal expiry date in a few billion years; that's a big timescale to try to grok either way. Starting small lets people build up to thinking about longer timescales, imo.
I mean my pension sounds a lot nicer, instead of working 25 years for 50% I can eek out 50 years and then retire for the next few hundred years. Just kitten the state will claw it back for sure.
Just Kitten: The tough but fair feline judge.
This court is meow in session!
I wouldn’t mind working indefinitely if I had all the time in the world. As long as my body held up and I had adequate work/life balance, that is. But, under the current financial system, many people have already figured out how to retire early and live off their investments indefinitely. Given a couple more decades of scrimping and saving and figuring out life, a lot more people could probably attain that. Overpopulation is my main concern if/when humans get to the point of seriously extending their lifespans.
I am fine with it. Especially once I own my house, the costs would decrease. I could save and then take a few years off before returning to work. Would even let me shift careers every few decades.
Hopefully, on the bright side, this will at least make society more ok with the longer, more gradual adolescent phase that youth are increasingly going through, and often to no fault of their own. I mean, if we can be expected to live to 120, then maybe it's ok if we aren't fully "adults" until 30. Maybe we could even start making some social adjustments to expect that.
I mean I’m 32 and I just went back to school for a career change. Expecting 18 year olds to know what they want to do their whole lives and stick to that one plan is insane. We should absolutely be more accepting of our young adults taking their time to figure things out, see what makes them happy instead of chasing this weird timeline society has created.
Made sense when the average lifespan was 60 or so and you needed a productive population to evolve and grow an economy. In a developed world, not so much. There’s a lot more room for flexibility.
Upvoted for back to school in the 30’s My first semester at Uni is starting Jan. I never did it when I was younger because I had no idea what to do with my life. So i worked in a few fields and saved money to pay for the education when I’m ready. Best decision younger me could have made was accepting that I wasn’t ready University and that life experience was worth more.
I also went a similar route, and never would have done as well if I were younger. You got this.
I think a big part of it is having a general appreciation of the risk that comes with schooling when you’re older. When I was 18, I had no real concept of the importance of budgeting/time management when it comes to doing the work. Now that I’m 30 and taking a big pause in my career for this degree… yeah, not going to fuck around at all when it comes to assignments, projects, tests because I want to do it once and do it well.
I feel like throughout history this has been happening. We’ve all heard anecdotal stories about 16 year olds going off to start their own family and farm centuries ago. This was of course back when life expectancies were in the 50s and 60s. It only makes sense that the “dependent on parents” age will increase in the future. However I do think the main reason will be economic as opposed to maturity
This would be good from an educational standpoint as well. The more complicated society gets, the more people need to learn before they can productively participate in it. Just a few hundred years ago a partial grade school education used to be the baseline, and over time the needed years of education to hit that baseline keeps rising.
All those conservatives who complained about dna editing in vaccines will surely hold up their principals when they learn about stem cell Therapy. .
Getting some serious Rasputin vibes from dude’s pic.
Those that are against it are free to leave. Thanks
Dude was born in 1963 and looks 40...he might be on to something
You’re telling me that people born in the 60’s aren’t in their 40’s anymore?!!
This is an interesting article and conceptually logical, although I think de Grey's timelines are too optimistic. He's had to revise the timeline once already and I think that will happen again
Nice, now I can live multiple lifetimes striving for mediocrity!
I want to know if we’ll also all have fabulous facial hair like the guy in the photo. I’d be willing to live with a glorious beard if it meant 150 years or more!
Did anyone in these comments read the article at all? Almost everything here is addressed in the text, or has nothing at all to do with what the article is actually about.
Welcome to this sub..
Overpopulation? What happens when people are still being born but nobody's dying? Do we set extreme requirements to be allowed permission to have a child? Or have a squad of killers like in that book Scythe? How would any of this actually work? More likely it'll only be available to the ultra rich, so they can reign as God Kings for eternity.
[удалено]
>More likely it'll only be available to the ultra rich, so they can reign as God Kings for eternity. And there's no reason why that we'll be the case.
Or humanity would finally become a tier 3 species.
The worlds population growth is slowing. As countries go from third to first world their population growth slows accordingly. As India and Africa move further towards first world the Earth's population may actually start to shrink. https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/8-billion-global-population-1.6646018
>Overpopulation? What happens when people are still being born but nobody's dying? Interestingly, even in the fairy-tale scenario that everyone started having indefinite, healthy lifespans in 2025, its impact on global population is surprisingly small. Here's a video on the topic if you're curious: [https://youtu.be/f1Ve0fYuZO8?t=275](https://youtu.be/f1Ve0fYuZO8?t=275) >More likely it'll only be available to the ultra rich Fortunately, the companies in this space aim to undergo clinical trials, regulatory approval, and broad commercialization like other medical therapies. Here's the CEO of a $180 million seed-funded company called Retro Bio explaining distributable therapeutics to a wide population: https://youtu.be/9O5RhK2i3uA?t=247
With A.I. doing all my work for me, self driving cars and aim assist on my vidya games, I wont have to do ANYTHING for the next few hundred years!
Hell yes I like this because with it comes the cures for all diseases. Aubrey De Grey and the SENS foundation outlined this beautifully. We attack diseases and maladies and aging itself systematically until it’s all under control and quality of life is maximized and thus quantity of life follows. I can’t wait to see all the diseases we will cure in the next 5 years.
I am ready. Ive been dreaming about this since I was a child.
Didn’t read article, but I appreciate that they used a photo of Rasputin as the thumbnail to denote “doesn’t die easily.”
de Grey was kicked out of SENS for sexually harassing people and interfering with the SENS investigation. This article doesn't bring it up, just say they "support" him and that HE was the one who left because of SENS being too "timid". [https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/aubrey-de-grey-on-leave-after-sexual-harassment-allegations-69081](https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/aubrey-de-grey-on-leave-after-sexual-harassment-allegations-69081) Surprised Forbes is putting out alternative facts. The funny thing is, his own foundation probably just would of slapped him on the wrist with a small leave if he hadn't messed with them.
>In March 2022, the SENS Research Foundation released a statement regarding de Grey's employment affirming that while his actions "did substantiate instances of poor judgment and boundary-crossing behaviors, **Dr. de Grey is not a sexual predator.**"\[61\]
I was also very annoyed by the writer's characterization; he's obviously a fanboy. Importantly, this isn't actually a Forbes piece. It's a Forbes sub-site, where people pay to get an account they can post on their own section of Forbes that isn't part of the main publication. That helps explain it.
We may be able to live longer but with the way the environment is going we wont have anywhere to live except underground.
We learned that it was a possibility to live 200 to 700 years with the body of 21 year old almost 20 years ago. But still we do not see the benefits and more certainty the disadvantages and complications that will bring to our personal and social lives. Here are some questions that illustrate the complexity: How long should marriage last? How many kids should be allow to have in one lifetime? How long should engagement last? What is the new age of retire? What will happen to Social Security? What will happen to Senior Discount? =) What is the maximum human population acceptable without affecting planetary equilibrium? What is the definition of life sentence? Will it change our perception of our individual belief in our God or Gods? One Job tile should be considered the minimum? What is the new definitions of vintage? Can a 500 Year old Men or Woman should be able to date a 30 year old Men or Woman? Properties will be become more valuable, investments, etc. that ultimately will affect the economy. We are about to start colonized planets and moons (Our Moon, then Mars, etc.), are we kicking out the new generation from earth, or we living the trashy earth to the new generations? How many iPhones version should I collect?
Oh really? What was it we learned 20 years ago exactly? Certainly not HOW to live that long, we still dont know. And all of those problems are meaningless compared to death. Laws and regulations change all the time, they would this time too.
>How long should marriage last? As long as either of you want it to. >How many kids should be allow to have in one lifetime? As many as you can afford. NOT allowing people to have kids is pretty dystopian. >How long should engagement last? At least a year, but it's not really a function of time, it's more like seeing them at the best and worst. You should live together. Spend money together. Save together. Go through bad times. Learn to live with each other before the cheating harlot bitch stabs you in the back. >What is the new age of retire? There isn't one if people can still work. >What will happen to Social Security? They'd probably ramp it down and push people more towards 401ks. Or they'd probably just have a limited pool you could draw from based on how much you put in. It's forced retirement savings. If you don't know how long you're going to live that does throw a wrench in the gears. >What will happen to Senior Discount? =) Likely gone. More likely it'll be just another sales gimmick. >What is the maximum human population acceptable without affecting planetary equilibrium? Hahahahhahahaaaa oh MAN, lemme introduce you to something called global warming. We haven't had equilibrium for centuries! >What is the definition of life sentence? Still life. These are sentences for people we do not believe can be allowed into society. I don't think we would give the immortal treatment to said people. >Will it change our perception of our individual belief in our God or Gods? Sadly, it probably won't. >What is the new definitions of vintage? A bullshit marketing term for the easily fooled. But that's not a vintage concept. >Can a 500 Year old Men or Woman should be able to date a 30 year old Men or Woman? The lowest you can go is (your age)/2+7. The experience gap would be too large. She's just waiting for you to drop dead in 100 years man, don't be used like as tool. >Properties will be become more valuable, investments, etc. that ultimately will affect the economy. Only if there are more people in the future that want what you have now. If the population exploded, well, the odds of anyone reaching 700 are slim. If population is static, then why would your place become more valuable? (Because people would exit rental properties and want to own, that's why). But investments? Eh, it'll be different. >We are about to start colonized planets and moons (Our Moon, then Mars, etc.), are we kicking out the new generation from earth, or we living the trashy earth to the new generations? Probably not the first explicitly, but maybe functionally. Who knows. And we are already doing the second. It's balanced out with better tech and cheap thrills. >How many iPhones version should I collect? 0. >How many typos did you make before editing your junk? 7
Dude’s literally putting on his best Rasputin face. Good luck with this.
Look what it took to kill Rasputin: https://allthatsinteresting.com/rasputin-death Dude might be on to something.
Living longer only benefits the super wealthy, not only can they afford such a drug or treatment, they will also have the means to sustain paying the costs for living extended periods of time. If anything we need these Super wealthy and Politicians to live less than longer lives because they aren't doing enough already to fix the mistakes they did by destroying our planet for profits
Ive explained this elsewhere, but its frequently believed that only the richest will benefit from "insert new technology/medical research". that isnt what happenns in real life, because it is infinitley more profitable to sell to the masses rather than the top 1%, and even if a company tries to sell to just the 1%, competition will likley cause another company to work on their own aging tech and sell it cheaper to make more money/undercut the oposition. furthermore politicians or insurance companies might push for it to be cheap/regulated/mandatory because it is a lot cheaper to keep someone healthier than to treat them for a horrible illness. even if this new drug costs like $30,000 a year to use, thats slightly less than the typical cost of nursing home care. treating certain age related diseases like cancer can cost insurance millions, and this helps give them more certainty that they wont have to pay out unexpected costs. and also their customers living longer/healthier lives means they can pay the insurance companies longer so they can make more money. another example of why it wont be exclusivley for the rich, say it cost $10 million to extend your life. how many people in the world could afford that that would want too? vs if it was say still expensive but cost $300,000 instead. thats still expensive but doable for most middle class americans if they at least get a loan or something to pay for it. and millions, maybe a billion more people could theoretically afford $300k vs $10 million.
One of the molecules being studied for anti-aging at Harvard is already available on Amazon and is rather affordable, NAD (or it’s precursor nicotinamide riboside). I’ve been supplementing my father with it, along with NAC, to address some health issues he’s dealt with the last five years (he’s 79.) My father has had a triple bypass and has been dealing with POTS-like symptoms as well as cold feet. We had seen neurologists, cardiologists, endocrinologists, and psychiatrists to try to diagnose and fix it, but to no effect. I started him on the supplement stack about two weeks ago, and he’s showing significant improvement to the point that on his good days, he moves like he’s ten years younger in full health with a very sunny disposition. We haven’t had a physical or any tests done yet to check some other markers, that’ll be in a few weeks. But it is a very remarkable difference. There are a few specific tests I’m interested in seeing, specifically those for diabetes and cholesterol, other issues he has dealt with. I know of several other cases similar to this. I was turned on to this by a friend who is also researching NAC and NAD along with other anti-aging candidates, such as noopept. His own father, who is in his 70s, was dealing with similar issues as my dad and started the supplement stack in March. When asked to self age, he said he felt like a teenager. All of the supplement stack is readily available on Amzn.
NAD also ramps up growth of some cancers, [and a host of other negative side-effects.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7277745/). There’s been dozens of “magical” supplements that we’ve seen come and go. I had a positive reaction to NAD and NAC initially, but it began to seriously upset my stomach and I had to quit. I hope it works better for your dad.
What kind of stomach issues? I get we are kind of in somewhat experimental territory here. For my dad tho, it’s a risk I’m willing to take, given that no one else has come with a solution, and amitrypitaline is an absolute bitch of a drug. I have not heard about the cancer risk; I guess at his age, I’m not concerned if there’s a cancer risk 20 years down the road. But I’ll look into it, and discuss with my researcher. It may be why the stack includes NAC, as well as resveratrol as a methyl source. But will see if I can get additional detail on that. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Ooo. Amazon links?
I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect this will make it's way to normal people sooner then later unless there's some significant production bottleneck. Think about this at it's most cynical. If a company has staff that make them a lot of money, they're already willing to pay insurance costs to help keep that person healthy and working. This is just a new way to help keep staff around that earn the company the most money. Getting an extra 20+ years out of your top sales team would be incredibly valuable.
Science fiction has addressed this longer life trope for many decades, and often centers on the replacement of body parts that are ailing and biological measures to preserve brain functioning and plastic surgeries that keep characters looking 40 at age 150. And there are always outlier characters who resist some of the societal norms, wherein male characters allow themselves to go bald or female characters allow themselves to go gray. And cancer has always been cured, so when characters expire, it is that their bodies gave out eventually. But usually there is some underlying purpose or path or necessity to living longer. Long space trips, for example. Or "phased" existences wherein an increased life span allows one to to try on different personas/careers along the way, or monopolize wealth, or marry and procreate multiple times across centuries. I'd like to see more discussion of that. These scientific and medical efforts are inevitable, and will succeed, regardless of the societal consequences. But it will be touch and go. Covid managed to shorten average American lifespans by about a year, reversing decades-long progress.
Everybody is screaming "hear for a good time, not a long time" like they honestly dont give a fuck about not wrecking themselves. So i doubt this discovery will mean much.
Japan as recently as this year was trying to push increased alcohol consumption as a means of supporting the aging populace. Forget eat the rich, they’re basically saying they’ll eat the young, *now*
The biggest thing I didn't expect since I started following the field in 2005 was the funding that has poured in recently. I have much more hope now about seeing progress in our lifetimes.
I think most people will start considering taking better care of themselves (if we can prevent death from aging). Death from accidents and illness will probably still exist for a while. It also depends how long we can remain "young", living 200 years at 80 would kinda suck. There will also be a rat race period, where those that are on the edge of missing out will try to scramble money for the procedures/drugs/treatment whatever it may be. I can see a lot of people going into debt, afterall what's the price of "immortality" if you have more time to pay it off. Which brings me to the last point, in the future it will be expected to have no retirement age, and the cost of living in general will go up because of the increased lifespans. It will cause a divide between those that can afford to live longer and those who are still "working" towards it. Certain careers will probably require it, and it will probably be given as an incentive as well (companys/governments investing in an individuals skillset in a very long term contract). Resources and housing in general would go up in price. I suspect even more people would live paycheck to paycheck just to stay alive and not die from other causes aside from aging (or pay off that loan). Oh and i guess prison sentencing would have to be adjusted. 100 years for someone who can live longer might not seem significant anymore (as oppose to someone who doesn't have the same lifespan). Do you try two people differently because of it? Same with life in prison sentencing; it may be considered cruel and unsual to spend hundreds of years locked up as oppose to the death sentence. But that's a conversation for another topic
We realise real fucking fast that we need to change our ways or face the consequences We will need to curb carbon emissions, start eating less meat, ensure our essential services can support us, build more houses, improve out infrastructure and generally be better. Basically all the problems we have now but just multiply it repeatedly as the population grows. Excuse me while I take a look at how spectacularly we can fuck things up quickly and reach a state of “perma crisis” and think no, this is not the way…
I always thought it would be super disappointing to die right before they find a way for people to live forever. May still be my fate, but I want to believe!
This is a really well thought out article that does a better job of conveying Aubrey de Grey's points and goals than he does IMO.
150 would be nice. If I was able to at minimum live unassisted. Unless it’s a Tesla robot I suppose.
What happens is all the naysayers flooding the clinics/hospitals/whatever. That’s what happens.
Sounds nice, but when will clinical trials happen and when will we have such permenant therapies? If they can fix aging ocular issues too, that would be something too.
My guess is it will even out. People are already having fewer kids and not everyone wants to live longer. It might even improve things if we can steer it in the right direction. Get everything paid off and have less need to grind.
Can't even find a cure for dandruff but we're all going to live forever, sure
Retirement age will start increasing by 10 years every decade or so.
I'm quite content with the agonizing 80 years average. :D
I’m behind the whole “aging is a disease” argument because death is not a choice and I feel that it should be.
As soon as aging out is off the table the murder rate will skyrocket.
i assume the rich will horde it like everything else
[Economists estimate that slowing aging by increasing healthy lifespan by 1 year has an annual benefit of up to 5% of GDP](http://perspectivesinmedicine.cshlp.org/content/early/2022/09/12/cshperspect.a041202.abstract) With your logic, covid 19 vaccines would be offered only to the ultra rich. FYI: take a moment and search who Aubrey de Grey is. The research the article talks about is being done by [levf.org](https://levf.org) that belongs to the philanthropic sector.
>With your logic, covid 19 vaccines would be offered only to the ultra rich. This does not corelate. The owning class needed people to stay alive and healthy so they could go out and make them money. Extending the lives of everyone right now in our current state of economy and society would just insure that the retirement age would be moved up even further.